[WestCoatBMom]

Imagine if you will being young (24) in college, full of hopes and somewhat unrealistic life and career ambitions. You already have one child, a toddler and that is all the you both want. People are pressuring you to have more than one child, but you know that isn't what you want... So you get a sterilization and have to move heaven and earth in order to get it because of your young age.

Now imagine 9 months after having that tubal ligation you find out you are PREGNANT! Yes, it happens in one out of every 1000 cases. You sink into a depression and your shaky marriage has gotten even shakier. Husband wants you to abort, but you can't bring yourself to do it. He is threatening to walk out on you at 7 months! So people at a local church suggest the adoption option...and you do it.

This is my true story. It is now 18 years since I placed that child for adoption, and I DO NOT regret it in the least! I feel my then husband and I made the best choice at the time.

So why does it seem that some people try to make you feel guilty about it because you are not pining away every day? or accuse you of "throwing your child away?" I'm sorry but that is so unfair! I read all these heart wrenching stories about birth mother so desperate to find the children they gave up, but no one ever tells the other side of the story...how giving up the child for adoption saved their lives not to mention their sanity!

To the angry and judgemental adoptees... I say do not judge the bmom or bdad until you've walked a mile in their shoes! Who says your life would've been better if the adoptee had remained in the family of origin, especially if the marriage was an unhappy and unstable one? or the mother felt suicidal? No one considers those things. No some people just want to pronounce judgment and make them sound like a latter day Hitler or something. I've seen quite a bit of this on the board, and I felt compelled to register and speak out so that women like me have a voice, too.

I do not love nor do I hate the child I gave away. The truth is I feel neutral about it. I do remember the birthdate, but I do not put myself through any rituals or cry my eyes out on that day either. While I am not adverse to meeting the child I gave up as it is now their legal right at age 18 to look me up if they wish, I am not going to initiate the contact. However, if that person did find me and showed me the kind of anger at me that I've seen on some of these posts, I am not sure I want to meet them.

It took me a long time to get my life together after that traumatic event and subsequent divorce and being a struggle single parent, college student etc, and the LAST thing I need is someone taking me through a guilt trip for a decision I made so long ago.

Are there any other birth parents who feel this way? or am I just the "odd one" here?