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

"Leaving my hometown was another part of my letting go of my daughter, a process I began the day that I put her in the arms of her new parents. Seeing 6-month-old Hanna reach for her adoptive mother had helped to convince me that everything was as it should be - as it was supposed to be. Our connection had been severed. It was time for me to move on. We were now both free to live the rest of our lives."

"I made my new home in Southern California, and within a month of moving there, I met my future husband at a punk concert when he protected me in the mosh pit. Two years later, we were planning our wedding when we were surprised to find I was pregnant. This time I felt I was ready for a baby, but I also felt an unthinkable amount of guilt about having a baby less than six years after giving my first one up for adoption."

"I had never stopped thinking about Hanna - never. But the adoption had forced me to grow up quickly, and I did. I had come out stronger. Sturdier. Wiser. I continued to feel so many emotions, but now I was able to handle most of them. The guilt was a different story. It was difficult to explain to the people in my life, including my husband and my mother, exactly what I was feeling."

A birth mother placed her infant daughter with adoptive parents after recognizing that the child belonged with them. She relocated across the country, started a new life in Southern California, and met a partner who became her husband. Years later she became pregnant again and felt ready for a baby while simultaneously overwhelmed by guilt about having another child so soon after the adoption. The adoption forced rapid personal growth and resilience, but memories and emotions about the first child persisted. Attempts to explain these complex feelings to family and friends proved difficult, and contact with the birth father reopened painful memories.

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