[Janeytwo]

Hi. This is so scary for me even to write to people like myself but I have to finally talk to somebody, even if it's an "e-somebody".....

Thirty years ago I found myself pregnant, very young and unmarried. After much soul searching, I gave my baby daughter and son up for adoption. I put the pain from that away. I buried it so deep that even I couldn't reach it. I locked it away inside my heart in a cast iron box and threw out the key. I couldn't look back. But I couldn't let go of my secret grief either because I felt it was all I had left of my children. I believed that if I cried, I would truly lose them forever. Anyway.....this is going to seem really strange but a few weeks ago I found myself in a building staring at a white-faced clock with a steel rim that was hanging on one of the building's walls.

The clock was exactly like the one that was hanging in the courthouse the day I went to give my babies up. I felt a stab of pain as I remembered sitting under that clock watching the minute hand tick by and thinking that in less than an hour I would go inside a small room in the courthouse, and surrounded by strangers, I'd sign a piece of paper and my babies would be gone. I remember being so young and wishing, praying that someone, anyone, would come along and ask me to marry them and then I wouldn't have to give my children up.

Giving my children up....that's what it feels like I've done all these years....it feels like I just gave up. I feel "less than" other women. I feel like somehow I am defective because I could do that, part with my children and go on with my life. My heart is broken.

I am so sad.

Janey