Adoption trauma
Adoption From a Teenaged Birthmother’s Perspective
Searching for a Piece of My Heart
Birthmothers get a bad rap, but not all birthmothers are bad people, addicts, or alcoholics.
Allow me to transport you back to 1976, a time when unwed pregnancies were still a very hush-hush taboo topic. Imagine you’re only 16, not married, very sheltered, naïve, and your family lives in a rural community and is deeply involved in a very strict Southern Baptist cult-like religion.
Next, imagine your parents find out about the pregnancy and ship you off in the middle of the night to a halfway house for troubled teens that also just happens to take in unwed mothers.
Then imagine that the halfway house is in the middle of a very remote location three states away. Everyone in the place is always kept under strict lock and key and not allowed to leave, make phone calls, or write letters home.
This is the nightmare I lived through!
I never wanted to give up my baby, and still feel to this day that I was forced to do so. I suppose I could have found a way to run away and live on the streets … maybe I would have survived but I seriously doubt my baby would have survived…
