Paige, this situation just has stirred up all sorts of terrible memories for me. I was living in a foster home when I got pregnant. My mother wouldn't let me come home until I agreed to relinquish my baby. Well, my foster home had no heat, very little food (I panhandled down at the beach every day to ensure I had the proper nutrition), and my foster mother was a drunk who passed out every night by 8pm. Well, I don't know if you've ever lived down by the ocean during winter with no heat, but the dampness goes right down to your bones. They used to leave all the burners on the gas stove going all day and night. My bedroom was right off the kitchen, so those lovely fumes really got to me. When I was about 6 or 7 months along, I told my mom I had decided to give up the baby, and she let me move back home. My mom and I barely got along, but her home was always spotless, clean, warm, organized, and she wasn't a drunk.
Well, I moved back home, only to find out that I had to hide in my bedroom whenever neighbors or her friends came over. It was demoralizing, to say the least. We flew to New Mexico to visit my uncle, a scientist in Los Alamos, and she made me wear this really huge coat on the plane. She made it clear that I was an embarassment to her, and she didn't want the flight attendant thinking negatively of
her.
Oh, and 19 years later when she met my son, she told him that she had never pressured me to surrender him to adoption...that it had all been my very own idea. I did notice that she didn't tell him how she referred to him as "the little bastard" the entire time I carried him. It's funny how time can change some peoples' memories...
