Guilt, Grief and Pride

by Kelsey Stewart

Every birth mother has a story that is unique. Not every woman feels the same way about what they chose to do. My journey into motherhood began over 20 years ago, and I have had many years to heal and assess what the significance of my experience has been. I have so much to say, so many feelings to share with others, and want to reach out to each and every birth mother and tell them that the road is hard and very long. There are huge mountains in the way and sometimes there are clouds that stay for days. And just as the calendar brings a new day, new week, new year, it will be a long time before the aching stops. I want to reach out to all of the adoptive parents to let them know that the other side of the story can be helped, by you, with support for your birth mother. As scary as it is for you to imagine that she will change her mind, it is equally as scary for her to think that her child will think she did not care about what happens them. This is an essay that will take you through my three stages of being a birth mother. Keep in mind that this is only my opinion and I respect any birth mother who does not feel this way about her own journey.

At 19, you think you know it all. I did. I was determined to make my adoption experience good, and keep control of what was to happen to my child. I was vulnerable and very gullible, thinking that because I was strong enough to make such a bold decision I was entitled to do it my way. I would have never thought that so many people, so many unknown people, would be coming at me telling me what I HAD to do in order to place my baby with he family that I wanted her to go to. It was quite a battle that I am thankful fell on my shoulders because if it would have been someone of weaker character, it would have been a very different outcome, In order to completely understand it, I have to explain what happened.

From the beginning, I knew that I wanted to have contact with my child. There was no other way that I could go through an adoption if I could not have contact with the parents. I could not imagine not knowing about her. I thought about the benefits of having contact, for both myself and the parents, and came to the conclusion that it was the best way for me to follow through on my promise to place her with her family. I started the process with a private lawyer and we contacted the proper state officials to proceed with home study of the parents and all the legalities that come with the adoption process. I was feeling confident, as were the parents, that we were going about the private adoption route legally. One month before my due date, I get a call from the State of Missouri Social Services Department. The tone of the call was mellow, the social worker just needed me to come in to talk to her, to make sure everything was in order. I was lied to. The moment that door closed, because I was over 18 my mother was not allowed in the interview, I knew that I would not be leaving there as confident as I was before. The social worker told me that I had no right to do a private adoption, the State of Missouri did not allow private adoptions, and all of the work that was done prior to our meeting that day were null and void. She stated that I had to find an adoption agency, I had to go through the process of finding a new family within a month, and I could not know anything about those parents or their personal lives. She was rude, very harsh and had absolutely no compassion for the young woman sitting in front of her who was trying to do what was best for her child. It was the first time in my life that I felt completely helpless, more important, I felt hopeless.

The events of that day catapulted me into the horrors of the adoption process for birth mothers. I had a pretty good run in the first 8 months, meaning I was feeling secure about myself and my decision. Once I had the meeting with the social worker, my whole demeanor changed. I was no longer feeling strong and confident. I no longer had the peace that I had before in knowing what I was doing was making a difference not just in my child’s life, but the lives of all who were to know her. I went from being calm and collected to being anxious and afraid. We scrambled to find an agency that would accept my case along with the parents that I had originally chosen. Because the social worker did such a good job on putting the kibosh on everything we had been working on in the past seven months, the parents that I chose had to start all over again with their responsibilities. They had to go through another home study, they had to fill out all the papers for a second time and worst of all, they had to pay the State of Missouri a large sum of money even though they had already paid a large amount of money the first time around. It was a debacle that just kept getting worse. Once we found the agency they were not very helpful when it came to explaining just exactly what was going to happen when the baby was born. For the first time I heard the words foster care and I did not understand why the baby had to go into foster care for three months before she could go home with her parents. They were relentless in asking questions about the father even after I gave them his information because I was no longer in contact with him. For the first time in my life I was really, scared … so much so I was ready to move to another state to have the baby because the laws everywhere were different from Missouri at the time and I just wanted people who did not even know me to stop judging me within a 20 minute interview.. I had a feeling of guilt that I had never had before. I started to think about the repercussions of being adopted, the misunderstanding of the reasons why, the feeling of abandonment, wanting to know why their mother would carry them and then just hand them over to someone else for life. I was in the throws of the unknown and it was a very lonely place.

I went into labor over the weekend. This may sound like a non issue in this day and age, but when I went into labor there were no cell phones or even beepers. It was not common place to get in touch with organizations on the weekends and although I left numerous messages that the baby was on the way, but no one called us back. I made the decision to call the adopting parents. All I said was, “You might want to make a trip here now. I am at the hospital.” I did not think it was a bad idea, I wanted them there as soon as she was born, the agency was closed and there was no one else to tell them to come to town. It was after that phone call that it all started to sink in. I was only going to be her mother for a few more days, if that. I knew that I had to be somewhat calm because I was still so unsure of what was to come in labor. It was long, 24 hours long. It was excruciating, I was exhausted and I was not really wanting it all to be over. With the last push, she came out, they whisked her away for attention and I lay there uncontrollably sobbing. She was no longer mine. She was no longer a part of me. I no longer felt like a girl, but a woman who just had all her innocence ripped away along with her heart and soul. My doctor was crushed, he was talking to me in a low soft voice and I remember him saying…”You are so strong. You are so brave.” Everyone in that room knew that I was placing her for adoption and it was a very somber mood. I could not stop crying. The overload of emotions that I was feeling at that moment are still unexplainable to this day. The one thing that I was feeling? That old friend guilt.

My time with my daughter in the hospital was wonderful because of my doctor. He made sure I had the largest room there and also made sure that I was in there alone with no other patients. He told every nurse on duty that I was placing my baby for adoption and asked them to be attentive to my needs. The second day I was there, I was alone with my baby when there was a knock at the door. Before I could answer it this woman walked in. She was dressed in a business suit with high heels, high hair and a big attitude. “Are you Kelsey?” she asked. “Yes. Who are you and why are you in my room?” I responded. She then took the baby from me. placed her in the bassinet and wheeled her into the hallway. She called and motioned a nurse to come to my daughter. She walked back into the room and began very sternly…”You have seriously jeopardized your baby’s chances of going to the parents that you have chosen. You should not have called them. We know that they were here, in the nursery, looking at the baby. This is not the procedure that was to be followed, and this is all your fault because you couldn’t wait until Monday for the agency to get in touch with you.” I sat there with my blood boiling in my veins, I stood up, walked up to her and said, ” You did not tell me your name.” She said it was Diana, “Well Diana, I cannot believe that you were spying on my baby, spying on my parents,,,,how do you even know who they are? I think you are rude, and I still have no idea why you are in my room and why you took my baby from me.” “That is not your baby. You made that decision and you are in no position to talk back to me. I am the social worker for the hospital and I have to oversee all of these adoption cases. You have no rights and I will tell you why…” she continued on but I did not hear a word she said. I was still stuck on ‘you have no rights’ and I was feeling quite dizzy, so I sat down at the end of my bed, in a haze, as she murmured on and on. I wanted her to just shut up. She was talking to me like a child, scolding attitude and clinched mouth, She seemed disgusted with me, disgusted that I would do something so out of protocol it would force her to come into work on a Sunday. I could see that she was ready to do some paperwork and I had had it, I got up and picked up the phone and dialed the nurse. The social worker was asking me what I was doing. The nurse came into the room and I politely asked her to please remove the woman from my room. She did not go lightly and had some choice words for me. After she left, I asked the nurse to call my doctor. Once he heard what I had to tell him, he called the social worker and asked her to come back to my room. When she got there, she was all pumped up thinking I was going to apologize but instead my doctor asked her for her badge number, her supervisors name and number, then he gave her a scolding and a warning that she was not to have any more direct contact with me. He was an amazing man and it helped having him on my side.

The morning I was to leave the hospital, I was incredibly strong but also feeling quite low and in a somewhat depressed state. I won’t go into detail about it, just know that it was crushing. I spent the day at home with my mother and I remember that I kept thinking I should be doing something, I need to be doing something. My dog was so intuitive. He sat with me the whole day and sniffed where my belly used to be, then he would lay his head on my leg, just laying with me. My mind would not stop. “I can’t do this. I have made a huge mistake. No I haven’t. She is much better off with the family that I chose. When will she go to them? Wonder how long I will feel this sad? No one told me about the absolute despair I would be feeling. When will that stop?” All day I cried on and off. Sometimes quietly. Once I woke up from a nap just bawling and my mother. my poor mother, she was feeling the heartbreak too. I thought I was strong, I can’t imagine watching your child place your first grandchild for adoption. She was right there with me, not only consoling me, but reminding me that what I did was right and I was a good person for being so mature in the face of uncertainty. It was the lowest day of my life. I could not shake off the fact that I just left her, watched her stay in the lobby with that social worker and the foster parents. Would I ever be able to explain to her face to face what I was thinking at that time? Why didn’t I stop the car and go back to her? Would she go to the home I chose? Would the state find a reason to keep her from them? If that happened, would I have the power to stop it? I was confused, ashamed, desperate, anxious and terrified that what I had done would never make any real sense. I kept reliving the entire hospital stay in my mind. I couldn’t shake the look that she gave me when I talked to her, what a great look. I memorized every moment that I had with her, and it was now playing like a movie in my mind, a movie with a very sad ending.

For three long months she was in foster care. We had a court date set and I was so unprepared for that. The adoption agency was doing their best to make sure that I was still willing to do the adoption, but they were failing miserably when it came to the counseling that was promised. I knew all too well by then the reasons why women change their minds. The curiosity just kills you. The fact that you are alone in the process, at least I felt alone because I did not know of anyone else that had gone through an adoption, doesn’t help at all. You wonder if their little minds are thinking,…”Where is the familiar voice? Who are you and why does your heart beat differently? Why do you feel different? Where did she go?”. You wonder when the aching for your child is going to stop. You wonder if that child will hate you for the rest of their lives for not keeping them. That on top of the whole hormone thing, explaining to people why you have no baby, and the continued process of more people sticking their nose in your business in the name of social services is enough to make anyone change their minds. It was just amazing to me that the system was keeping such close tabs on me and my baby when they could have used all that time and energy on those kids out there in need of real social services. The system, in some states, really works against the birth mothers … shaming them into thinking they are bad women for choosing adoption. It happened to me, and I am sure it happened to many other women and girls out there. What a horrible way to treat someone trying to be moral in their own eyes. I walked around with a huge neon sign above my head that said “Gulity” because in a way, I was beginning to believe them. I knew what I was doing was right, but no one else thought that way. Sure the adoption agency was all nice to me, but they were not concerned for how I was coping with everything, Their main concern, as I said before, was that I was not going to change my mind and back out of the adoption.

The court date finally came and I was so nervous. The adoption agency had not prepared me and when it came time for the actual hearing, I was shell shocked to hear that I had to once again, get up in front of a stranger to tell them my reasons for placing my child for adoption. By this time the guilt in my heart was so overbearing that I had to force myself to wake up everyday. I was living in a sea of self doubt, not sure if I was strong enough to do what I intended to do. I would do it, I knew that. In my subconscious I knew that I had convinced myself that it was the right thing to do. It was living with it. Living with the thoughts of self loathing, living with the decision that was casing me so much pain, living with the feeling that I will never be able to fully explain my actions to my child. I remember most of the hearing as if it were a documentary that I had seen. Small room, florescent lights, big tables and one man peering over his glasses making judgements about my child, and about me, based on a ten minute question and answer session with a young mother. IT was degrading. I was so humiliated sitting there. You would never know it from looking at me. I was quite stoic and I did hold my head high as I told the judge that I felt I was an unfit mother, that I was willing to give my baby to another family to raise. Once all of the legalities were finished, the judge gave his closing statement in which he stated to the court that he found me to be mentally fit to make this decision for my child and that I was granted the “relinquishing rights” that I was seeing on this date in this state and so on. BANG! The gavel hit like a rock on my head. She was gone. It was over. All my agonizing over the past four month’s events were sealed with the signature of a judge. Outside the court building I handed my daughter to her parents, face wet with tears, and I told them to please tell her just how much I loved her.

Driving home, the feeling of guilt was replaced with grief. I no longer would visit her in foster care, watching how she would marvel in the sound of my voice. I would no longer have contact with her directly, she was no longer mine. I struggled to find peace with it as I looked out the window watching trees go by. I had been crying for over an hour, not a sobbing but rather a steady stream of tears that just welled up and fell as my mind contemplated my role in her life. They would see her first smile. They would see her first steps. They would see her make her first basket with a ball that is much too big for her hands. They would comfort her when she needed it. I was now just the woman who gave birth to her, and I would have to watch her grow without me. It may sound selfish, but when else had I been selfish throughout this entireprocess? I felt I had a right to feel sorry for myself that day. I was grieving a loss that I would find to be recurring over the years. Many, many years.

To lose your husband, you would be a widow. You would be in tremendous pain but a life insurance payout could provide some sort of lifeline to keep you going. To lose your wife, you would be a widower. To lose your parents, you would be orphaned. But the loss of a child is so profound and unexplainable, there is no word in the dictionary that could sum it all up into one word. Now in my case, I was grieving a child that was still alive. It sounds harsh when put into those terms. However, think about the implications. I was grieving my curiosity in a way that is not meant to be. I am sure there are some of you who have lost a love interest, and that is somewhat close to what I was feeling. The heartache of knowing that they are not interested in you when you are ready to give your heart and soul to them. If you have experienced that, then I would
multiply that by 1,000 to understand the loss that I had to cope with. I was getting familiar with the feeling of despair coupled with uncertainty. People would ask me about her and I would lose it. My emotions were everywhere. I was in a serious bout of depression for about six months after the court date. I was still my out going self, but I was also damaged. My soul was disturbed and like I said before, I felt that a huge part of my innocence was gone. Who would want me now? Who would want to love a 20 year old mother? That is how I viewed myself for a very long time after she was born. Then I found the love that would save me. He was so right for me, that I am married to him. I mention this because even with someone loving me like that, I still carried that grief. There was still sadness in my heart. It stayed for a long, long time too. IF I had to put a time line on it, I would say that the grief lasted for about 8 years. Really, serious, bad days abound grief. I never worked on her birthday, that was a very personal day for me. I always worked on Mother’s Day, just to keep my mind occupied with other things besides what she was doing. There were days of just sitting, not sure how to feel after all that time.

I soon learned to let go and embrace what I had, not what I had lost. My man taught me a lot about love, how it can lift you up, heal you and let you feel hope. His love allowed me to feel the innocence again, the thrill of letting someone in to share my dreams with. He was, and still is, the one who helped me heal the most, allowing me to work through the years of pain and loss. He proposed to me on a trip to Catalina Island after 8 years of courtship. Several days after our engagement I sent out announcements and I made sure to send one to her parents. I had been in contact with her and her family throughout the years and I was excited to tell them of my news. My mother called me on the phone with incredible news several days later: My daughter told her mother that she really wanted to be in my wedding and wanted to call me to ask if I would
mind. IN that phone call, all the years of guilt, all the years of grief were washed away with a great sense of pride. How amazing to know that she wanted to be a part of such a big day and event in MY life. I called her house and spoke to her mother about the possibilities of her being my Junior Bridesmaid. Her mother confirmed that my daughter wanted to be there and agreed that it was something they were willing to share in, I then talked to my daughter and asked her to be in the wedding, to which she squealed with delight and told me…”No one has ever asked me to be in their wedding before!” She walked down the isle just before me, and there was not one person in attendance that did not feel my pride that day.

Pride. That is the final stage of my journey as a birth mother. To know my story, you know that not only did I place my daughter for adoption, a couple of years later I also placed my twin boys for adoption. I went through the same emotions and feelings with their pregnancy and I have an open adoption with their parents. I wanted to focus on the first adoption for this writing because the first placing was so difficult. I have had contact with my boys and they are proud of me and my accomplishments in life. My daughter used my book as the subject of her first speech this year in school. She also wrote a beautiful article in her school newspaper about being adopted and how much she admires me for making such a difficult choice. When I think of my children, I smile. My heart grows three sizes bigger and I no longer have any guilt or grief. It has been 20 years of soul searching that has lead to an outcome I could not have imagined: all three of my adopted children understand that I loved them and they are proud of me for being so brave. I now talk about adoption with a huge smile on my face and confidence in my voice. I am just one example of so many women out there who were brave enough to ask for help and have lived positive, fulfilling lives despite the stigma attached to the label birth mother. I know now that I am only as brave as I allow myself to be, I know now that my decision was the right thing to do at the time and I have been paid back in spades just knowing that my children are proud of me. I know now that I can overcome anything if I believe in myself. After all, I believed in myself when others chose not to and all these years later I take great pride in being a brave mother.

About Kelsey Stewart

Kelsey Stewart is a first time Author/Illustrator who has a unique perspective into adoption. She has been through two adoptions as a birth mother and hopes that her book ‘The Best For You’ will help children and adults everywhere understand why a mother might choose to place her child for adoption. A native of Missouri, Kelsey moved to Southern California in her mid twenties with her husband and worked as a graphic designer until their second son was born. Now a stay at home mom and volunteer for the community in which she resides, Kelsey has lived a full, productive and happy life since her journey as a mother began and considers herself incredibly blessed.

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