The Big Question

I think this is the longest I've gone without posting since I started this blog. It feels like a very long time. It's been a long time since I've done several things, actually. If you've e-mailed me in the past month or so, you probably think I'm a huge jerk for not writing back. I'm sorry. It's on my to-do list. But the list is long, and the fact is I needed a break from a lot of things, and I took it.

Anyway.

I get asked lot of questions about adoption and being a birth mother. Some of them are smart questions and some of them are stupid and some of them I hear over and over again. But I think the question I get asked more than any other is probably the most important one. It's one of the first things people want to know.

Why did I place Roo for adoption?

It sounds like a simple question, and it sounds like it should have a simple answer, but it's more complicated than that. I mean, there are a LOT of reasons I placed Roo for adoption.

The simple answer is that I placed her for adoption because I love her. For some people, that's counterintuitive. If I loved her, I'd have kept her, right? But I love her enough that I put her first. I love her too much to take a gamble on her future.

There are other answers I can give, that I do give. One is that I chose adoption because I wanted Roo to have married parents who were absolutely committed to each other and to their family. I wanted her to have the stability of that kind of home. I didn't want her going from my house to H's with no real routine or consistency. I wanted her to have parents who believe the same things, who want the same things, who agree about the best way to raise and care for a child. I didn't want her to ever feel like her loyalties had to be divided between parents, or that by choosing the ideals and beliefs of one parent would be a betrayal of the other.

That's not a criticism of H, by the way. I don't hate him or think he's a bad person or anything. I hope he's happy, quite honestly. But the fact is that he and I are very, VERY different people, and we believe different things and have different priorities, and I didn't want Roo to feel she had to choose between us. That's a lot of responsibility for a child. It would be a lot of responsibility for an adult!

I chose adoption because it's important to me that Roo grows up knowing who she is - a precious daughter of a loving Heavenly Father who has a plan for her and her life. I wanted her to go to church every week, to learn about her Savior. I wanted her to have an eternal family. (<--link)

There were other spiritual factors. I knew that this was the most important choice I could be faced with. I prayed about it more than I've prayed about anything in my life, and God's answer to those prayers was pretty clear. I knew what He wanted for Roo.

But none of those factors, either alone or combined, could have pushed me to sign the papers I signed, to place my precious baby, were it not for what I think is the most compelling reason of all. I did what I did, I chose what I chose for pretty much one reason, and one reason alone.

I placed Roo for adoption because I met her parents.

I knew when I met them that they were her parents and that she was their baby. That same part of me that said "Mine" when I first laid eyes on Roo, said "Theirs" when I met P and M. I can't explain it. I can't make logical sense of it. But when I met them, I thought, this is why I couldn't do it before. This is why, as much as I loved the other couples I met, I couldn't place my baby. Because she wasn't their baby. She was P and M's all along.

I've been criticized before for my somewhat liberal use of the phrase "meant to be" when it comes to placing Roo. But you know what? I don't particularly care. It doesn't matter to me if people believe it was meant to be or if they believe that I'm deluding myself to ease the pain. What matters is that I believe it. That I know it. That Roo's parents know it, and that as Roo gets older, she'll know it, too.

I placed Roo with P and M because she is their daughter and once I met them, once I knew that, I knew that I would feel guilty for the rest of my life if I didn't place her. I couldn't not do it. The choice was made. And I would make it again in a heartbeat, a million times over. It's as simple as that.