Dear birth mom,

You did the right thing.

I’m sure you’ve thought a lot about it – whether you should have given me up or not. Or maybe you don’t think about it at all. Maybe it’s too painful or you feel guilty about it. Regardless, you did the right thing.

You did the most selfless thing.

And whether or not you actually think it was selfless doesn’t matter.

It was.

You were young.

Way too young to take on the responsibility of me. And let’s just say if I got any of my genes from you, you had an inkling of what you might be getting yourself in to.

But you went through the long journey of pregnancy, the painful process of labor, and you gave birth to me.

You gave me a chance to see the world.

You sacrificed nine months of your life so that I could breathe and laugh and scream and hug and cry and…

live.

And I will be forever grateful to you, my birth mother.

I don’t know the circumstances of my birth. I don’t know what kind of trauma, fear, pain, or shame you went through when you discovered I was nestled inside your belly. I don’t know who you had to tell and if you had to hide.

I don’t know how your friends treated you, if your parents accepted you, if you finished high school, if you went to college.

I don’t know how sick you were, if you had complications, if you threw up half your meals.

I don’t know what it was like to push me out of your body and then watch them take me away, part of your flesh.

I don’t know if you had other children.

I don’t know if you thought about me, forgot me, loved me, resented me.

But I will always be thankful.

Because of your sacrifice I learned to crawl, walk, run.

Because of your sacrifice I had a loving family.

Because of your sacrifice I learned to play piano, sing, act, dream, climb.

Because of your sacrifice I grew up, fell in love, got married.

Because of your sacrifice, I gave birth to my own little girl, my own flesh.

It doesn’t matter how or why you decided to follow through with the pregnancy; how or why you chose to give me away.

I feel no malice, no hurt, no abandonment.

I only know I’m alive.

And I am living every single day in gratitude of your single choice.

You did the right thing.

Love,

A grateful daughter.

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Want to know more about my adoption? Read my story here.

Do you have your own adoption story? Are you a birth mom? I’d love to hear from you! Please leave a comment below. I am forever thankful for the beauty of adoption.

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