guest blogger: hardest but most rewarding

i met deborah on adoptionvoices.com. hers is a unique story to tell and has a surprisingly happy ending giving the circumstances regarding placement. be sure to check out her blog! thanks for sharing lady, hearts to you!

I had been dating the birthfather off and on since the summer of 2000, I met him at a swimming pool at an apartment complex, talk about a bad start. On, March 20th of 2002 I found out I was pregnant. I had just turned 20 years old. I was freaked out, words can't describe how it felt to be told that I was pregnant.

My boyfriend wasn’t too happy about the idea of my being pregnant, so he insisted that I have an abortion. I don’t believe in abortion, nor do I feel its an option, so that wasn’t going to happen, so he started making preparations to start living together, although at that time he wasn’t employed and hadn’t been for about 6 months. He said that we could just move in together and get married as a later date, I was not stupid, I knew he was never planning on marrying me, at least not any time soon. I didn’t want to live with him, I wanted to be married, I had already messed up why make it worse?

For the next 2 months I literally begged him to marry me, I was already humiliated about getting pregnant and I wanted to make my mistake “right”. After a grueling 2 months, and believe you me this was a horrible time in my life, breaking the news to family and trying to get the man whom I thought loved me enough to marry me to give me a ring and promise to marry me, it was rather a degrading time for me and very humiliating.

I finally got a ring....this is how the proposal went.....I was sitting in the truck waiting for it to heat up while Jeremy went to go use the restroom before we left this little podunk restaurant we had just eaten at, he jumped into the truck and said he “found something in the bathroom” (yes, NO JOKE), I was like what the heck, and he proceeded to hand me a ring, keep in mind that this ring wasn’t any of the rings I had chosen at the jewelry stores, I am guessing he got a really good deal.

It only took a few days for me to realize that I had made a really big mistake by even considering marrying this guy. You see he wasn’t a good guy, an abusive alcoholic to say the least. I prayed and put much thought into whether I should marry this guy or not, my decision was final when we were driving in his truck to his nephew’s birthday (which I didn’t want to go to) and he started to yell at me at the top of his lungs that I was going to this birthday party whether I “liked it or not”, something inside me told me that this wasn’t right and to go home, I insisted that he took me home, he begrudgingly complied. I cried the whole way home, when he parked in front of my parent’s house to drop me off I told him I “couldn’t do this anymore” and gave him back the ring. I shut the door and he immediately sped away, peeling out and screeching his tires around the corner, typical. I went inside the house and went upstairs to tell my Mom that I broke off the engagement, my Mom and I cried together, we were both relieved but sad. Up until this point I hadn’t felt so much relief, I was so glad that I finally had the courage to accept that I didn’t need to marry him.

After I broke off the engagement, I spent the next few months preparing to single-parent, I was set on single-parenting and nothing was going to stop me. My Mom told me about LDS Family Services and I refused to have anything to do with it, she begged that I at least TRY and if I didn’t like it then we’d be done with that. How I ended up going isn’t the issue, so I’ll jump forward.....I took counseling from LDS Family Services, this program was a lifesaver, I owe so much to those wonderful people who worked with me (especially my counselor Sundee) and who helped me through this horrible time in my life, but I cannot give them all the credit, I also have my parents and family to thank, without them there's no way I could have gotten through it, they supported me 100% regardless what my decision was.

A few months after the broken engagement I went from adamantly wanting to keep my baby and single-parenting (until I was about 5-6 months along to be exact) to adamantly wanting to place her for adoption in a period of maybe 12 hours. I weighed all my options over the months silently, and after much thought, prayer, fasting, and counseling I decided that placing her for adoption was my only option. There was no way I was going to force a child to live a lack-luster, highly unstable life with a horrible father just because I couldn’t stand to let her go, I had to look outside myself and put my baby first.

I was able to CHOOSE parents for my daughter. I searched through about 40-50 prospective adoptive couple profiles and felt extremely strong about one family in particular. I took the profile home and prayed about it. The next morning I knew without a doubt (and this is a feeling I can’t quite explain, but I knew without a shadow of doubt) that this beautiful couple was going to be my daughter’s parents. I was ready, willing and prepared to go through with the adoption, both mentally and spiritually. The adoptive couple was informed of my choosing them, I met them, we kept in contact, they were excited, I was excited for them, I was ready.

3 weeks before Anna was born, Jeremy came back into the picture and immediately stopped the adoption (this was after having next to ZERO contact with me for more than 6 months), he had gotten a lawyer and knew about the possible adoption. He made all sorts of claims about my intentions of placing Anna for adoption, he said that I didn’t love her and that I should just give her to him, that if she were a boy he wouldn’t even consider adoption, that I should marry him, all sorts of crazy things.

Anna was born on October 21, 2002 (3 weeks early). While legal proceedings went forth where Jeremy was attempting to force me to single-parent and attempting to make everyone’s life miserable and after Anna had been placed in a foster home through LDSFS she had to come home and live with me, because the situation was becoming too “adversarial” for LDSFS to stay too much involved.

As I took care of her, I tried my hardest to keep in mind what was best for her, it was so hard to look into her eyes and know that I may or may not keep her, that at any second I may need to place her for adoption or that at any second I would be a single-mom having to deal with taking care of a child I wasn’t ready for, and having to deal with custody battles and such. It was a terrible time in my life, my parents, my family and for the adoptive couple, as you can imagine, we were all just waiting.

Finally, after 3 months, he gave up. After a serious push from the Spirit that I needed to contact him personally, I told the BF that if he signed the relinquishment papers (I was desperate, until this point I had not had any personal contact with him) that I would give him an electric ice auger (yes, I said ICE AUGER) I won at a fishing event a year prior, and he agreed, the next day after signing the papers, January 13th, 2003, I placed Anna into the arms of the the coolest people in the world. The wait was over, I persevered, Anna was going to be happy, and most importantly, safe.

One who doesn’t understand or has never gone through something like this before might think to themselves ‘how could she do that after 3 months’? My answer to that is, I am not exactly sure how I did it, but I can tell you that an “errand of angels” were there with me the whole way, lifting me up and helping me get through it.

My faith and prayer is what got me through this.deborah and anna on placement day

anna summer 2009

Anna saved my life. I would never in a million years wished that I hadn’t gone through this, it was hard, there was a lot of pain, a lot of serious thought and consideration, it was not a decision I chose lightly, but it was worth it. I was on a downward spiraling road before I got pregnant, my life was going no where, I was dating a horrible abusive person, I was abusing alcohol myself, I had no goals, no aspirations, things were not looking up. God knew what it would take to get me to straighten up and do something with my life.

I thank God for this experience, it changed my life forever.

Adoption is a beautiful thing, my Church first suggests that a marriage be sought, but if a “successful marriage” isn’t possible, which in this case it absolutely wasn’t, then adoption is suggested to be the next option. I am glad that I was smart enough to realize what was most important. 7 years later I still hear from Anna's adoptive parent’s and I still get to see pictures of her on a regular basis, I am very fortunate.

In my case adoption wasn’t what I thought it might be like, I am happy not depressed, I have never regretted doing what I did, I look at it as the hardest thing I have done in my life, but also the most rewarding. I am now the proud wife of a Soldier, I have a wonderful husband, an ADORABLE son and another baby on the way, my life is good. I had the opportunity to be sealed in the LDS Temple to my husband, my children are sealed to me for eternity, I have traveled the world, I am on my way to getting my college diploma, I have goals and aspirations, I have accomplished so many things, things that I thought would NEVER happen to me before Anna came along. I think about Anna often, I think about my experience and it helps to keep me on the right path.