I grieve deeply for you, my nineteen year-old self. For how vulnerable and alone you were. Isolated and afraid. A victim of self-condemnation and guilt as irrational thoughts and lies swirled around in your head: you weren’t good enough; unworthy of motherhood; another couple was more deserving of your baby; that was your punishment. Consequently, the battle in your mind was lost.

Your pregnancy was never a crisis. It was unplanned, not unwanted. Sadly, you received no support. You were encouraged to move out of town and give your baby away so no one would have to know. Held hostage by fear and broken by shame, you acted without thinking. Contrary to what you were told, your unplanned pregnancy was not the answered prayer of another couple, nor is a baby a gift to simply be given away. You were never meant to carry the burden of creating a family for someone else.

There’s so much you didn’t know before moving away. You had no idea what you were getting yourself into, or the life-long ramifications that would follow. And you certainly didn’t know what it would feel like to have a new life grow inside you, to feel the flutters and the kicks. Or the profound love as you birthed a more beautiful and precious version of yourself. The emotional rush of looking in to your newborn’s eyes for the first time. The feeling of him on your chest, as you soothed his cries, and then in your arms as you counted ten tiny fingers and toes. You didn’t know the strength of the bond that had been formed in the womb that would grow deeper still once you met.

But the plan was made. Trapped by the chaos in your mind, you didn’t know a way out. If only you could have reasoned, known this truth – you and your baby belonged together. Naturally. If only you could have found some quiet, some calm, in your mind to connect your head with your heart. If only you could have trusted your instinct to believe that motherhood was yours to embrace. And known that this is just temporary – nineteen and single. Adoption is permanent. For the rest of your lives.

If I could tell you what I know now, all these painful memories would not be running through my head: the lonely nights as you buried your head in a tear-soaked pillow; crying desperately in a heap on the cold kitchen floor after hanging up the phone; that nurse in the hallway, with your baby in her arms as he turned his little head to look at you for the last time; there in the shower, full of post-partum hormones, with swollen breasts as the milk that dripped mixed in with falling tears, then disappeared down the drain; shamefully standing in front of the bathroom mirror as your engorged breasts were bound tightly with a towel pinned at your back.

The inexplicable grief will snatch your breath away at times and sit heavy on your chest, even all these years later, even with your son back in your life. No one told you it would be this way. No one talked about the trauma of separation or unresolved grief that would be stored in your body, that would be easily and unexpectedly triggered. One cannot simply forget and get over such immeasurable loss. But no one seemed to care. Not the doctor. Not the social worker. Neither of these professionals asked even once if this was what you truly wanted. After the birth, appointments and meetings abruptly came to an end. You were no longer needed. Like a vessel poured out and emptied, then tossed aside. 

I’ve had so many questions: Why did you give up your power? Why didn’t you open up and talk with someone about your true feelings? If love is all it takes to make a family, then why weren’t you good enough for your baby? Why was your family broken unnecessarily to make another? Does the pain of infertility trump the pain of losing a child to adoption? 

Though I find myself filled with regret for the choices you have made, they are the choices that have made me. So I choose to honour the courage and strength it has taken to continue moving forward. I choose to hold in the balance the pain of what was lost, with the indescribable joy of what has been found – a family redeemed whose roots have remained as one. A family that is Kintsugi*.

God’s goodness and grace can be found in the hurt, and in the broken places of my life. And like broken bones that heal stronger than before, God can bring strength out of brokenness.  I will give voice to the vulnerable and marginalized young mother. I will not shame or judge her, regardless of the choices she’s made. Most importantly, I will see and value her, and empower her to be the best that she can be.

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”

Ernest Hemingway

*Kintsugi is a Japanese art of taking something broken, like a pottery, and then through a mixture of precious metals — gold, silver or platinum — the pieces are put back together. They repair to such a point that it’s brokenness becomes part of the beautiful history. The brokenness is not disguised but enhanced.