At 17, I Gave My Baby Up. I Never Expected The 2-Word Message My Child Would One Day Send Me.

It was after dinner and I was on standby in case my daughters needed help with their homework. As I waited, I scrolled social media. I rarely pay any mind to my local online moms group now that my kids are teenagers, but an anonymous post stopped my finger mid-swipe.

A mother was asking for advice. She had just found out she was pregnant, and because she and her husband already had several children, he didn’t want any more. Though he was sure of his decision, she wasn’t, and wanted help figuring out what to do.

The post was flooded with hundreds of responses, most of which amounted to “You will never regret keeping your baby!” Then there were at least two dozen comments with the single word, “Adoption,” followed by varying amounts of exclamation points, and one with a question mark. I imagined the mothers writing those comments and pictured them throwing magical confetti at the computer as if they were helping — as if just typing that one word was a simple solution that would work for everyone.

Do I respond to this mother in crisis? I wondered. I started to type. I deleted my comment. Do I respond to these flippant proposers of adoption? I started typing, then deleted the text once again. I turned my phone off and leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I was feeling so many emotions at once that I wasn’t sure I could even identify them all, but I definitely felt frustration, anger, and yearning swirling through my body.

People who have never been touched by adoption always seem to think of it as easy, but as a mother who placed her child for adoption, struggled through the chaotic emotional aftermath of the separation, and then reconnected with my child later on, I know the truth. Even though it was the right choice