[Mommy24]

Love, I have no answers. I DID place due to financial restraints. However, not to the extreme that you are speaking of. It wasn't that I did not have a warm home, not that I couldn't have had a job, I wasn't starving by any means, but at 19 with an unplanned pregnancy and an uncertain relationship with the biological father I feared that my little place, no job, lack of money to buy every little toy, cutesy baby things, the latest and greatest bouncy seat.....I could go on forever was not enough and that my son deserved all of those things.

When I called the agency to inquire about adoption I was told what a loving option adoption was, how deserving my unborn child was to have 2 parents who could provide him everything he would ever dream of. I was not told that if I really wanted to parent that all the toys, bouncy seats, name brand clothes wouldn't really matter to him as long as I loved him and could provide a roof over his head and food in his belly (Hello...breastfeeding...free...)

So I do agree that placing for financial reasons is a valid reason, but we need to be making sure that e-moms who are inquiring about adoption realize that all of those material things aren't the end all be all of parenting. I was so hung up on thinking that material things would make me a better parent when in the end I had ALL that it took to be his mommy.