When you’re a teenager and expecting a child, there are a lot of things to do. One of the first ones was to choose to continue to carry the baby. In this day and age it is very common for high school students to choose to get an abortion, not because they don’t love that child, but usually because there is fear of the unknown or because everyone else says it’s better since it is a social acceptance. Usually abortions are done in the first trimester, so most people won’t even know that the high school student is expecting. It’s probably the easiest way to hide a pregnancy. I still respect other women who have had abortions, even though I may not like the idea of abortions, every woman still deserves respect for her decision.
When it comes to social acceptance for teenagers, birth mothers are not usually a part of that social acceptance. It is more socially acceptable for a female to end a pregnancy than for her to place the child in an adoption. Choosing life was a hard decision for me, especially before I heard the heartbeat of the baby. I didn’t want to be bullied, made fun of, or verbally attacked by people. I didn’t want people to look at me with sad or malicious eyes because I was only 16 years old with a round belly. Either way, I knew that I would still be judged for any decision I chose to make, whether it was abortion, parenting, or placing. Once I heard that beautiful, perfect, and little heartbeat, I had I guess what people would call mother’s instincts kick in. I became completing in love and protective of that little baby I was expecting. I knew in that moment that I would never do anything to hurt that child ever. That’s when I knew that abortion was not the decision for me. That left parenting and placing. At that time I had many other teenage girls that I knew choose to abort or parent. I met only one during my pregnancy who was choosing to place. After much prayer and guidance, I knew that placing was what I was supposed to do.
It seemed to me at the time that since I chose to place, everyone was almost disappointed in me. When I chose to talk to really close friends about my pregnancy, and told them how I would be placing, I had many say, “how could you do something like that? Don’t you love your child?” It was hard to accept that people I had known for a long time, if not for my whole life were treating me different. I once had a mother in church cover her daughter’s eyes because I had a big round belly. Every time when someone would say something or react rudely, I thought about my decision to place. But after praying and reprocessing all the pros and cons of adoption vs. parenting, I knew that adoption was still the right decision for me.
I chose life because that child deserved the world, and deserved a chance. It wasn’t right in my opinion to take away a chance at life. Once I decided to choose life and chose that I was going to place, I was incandescently happy. I wanted to give my birth son, Mason, everything. Everything I had growing up and even more. I chose to give him two loving parents, a sister, the best dog in the world, a mother who could snuggle with him every day and take him to the park, a father who would take them to the funnest places on “daddy day”. It was because I chose life that Mason is so beautiful and gets to run around his house every day from 6 am to 8 pm with the biggest smile on his face as his sister chases him. I won’t ever regret the choice of life.
Story written by: Makena Porter
Read The Love of a Birth Mother and be inspired even more by Makena’s wonderful decision to place her baby for adoption.
November is Adoption Awareness Month. Do you have a story of adopting or placing a baby for adoption? Real Imprints would love to share it. Click here to find out more information on sharing your story.
This story appeared first on Real Imprints.