It’s a cry I hear from birthparents over and over again: “If ONLY someone had believed in me. If ONLY someone had presented one encouraging word, one small offer of emotional support.”

In her blog this week, Paragraphein writes of a conversation in which she’s trying to forgive her now-husband for his lack of support during relinquishment.

“I opened my mouth to speak and my chin wobbled. The room went blurry behind my tears. My voice shook as I said, “I just wanted one... more

Bear with me a while – this two-part post will eventually meander around to a point.

The other week I went bowling with my boyfriend. Neither of us are what you’d call talented bowlers, but we like to go every once in a while just for the fun of it. A perfect score is 300; Bryce usually gets about 160, and I call it a great day if I break a hundred.

My difficulties with activities like bowling come from the fact that I have almost no coordination. And, as an extremely shy person, I also tend to get stressed out and self-conscious when people... more

Now you hear a lot about things that you will need for your child and you really don’t need all the luxuries that many people consider necessary items.

When I had my first son, Noah, I was barely nineteen years old and my pregnancy with him was considered an unplanned or crisis pregnancy. We had the bare minimum of items. Ten years later, he is thriving and doing well and he doesn’t remember how much or what we had when he was a baby.

I bought a crib from the newspaper for around thirty dollars then cleaned it up a little myself. I bought sheets, bumper pads,... more

Updated: Link should be working now!!

I have created a web survey (like a few of the other bloggers have done here) so we can get to know you, our readers, better.

I’m really curious as to why you are reading the Unplanned Pregnancy Blog… Are you in an unplanned pregnancy? Did you experience an unplanned pregnancy in the past? Are you a birthmother? Are you a single mother? Are you another blogger and something in the title caught your interest? Do crisis pregnancy issues... more

Watch out, I think I am just in a mood lately! It seems like little comments people make are irking me more so than usual.

If I had a quarter for every time I’ve heard the phrase “I don’t know how you do it” or “I don’t know how you did it” or “I don’t know if I could do it if I were you,” I could take a really nice shopping spree to Paris! Oh, all the purses I could buy!

Ok, I’m getting off my point……

I probably hear this more often than the average birthmother, because not only am I a birthmother, I’m the mom to a special needs child granting-i-don-t-know-how-you-do-that... more

It seems like in the general population’s point of view of birthmothers puts us into one of two categories – sinners or saints.

Sinners – At least once out of every five times I explain I am a birthmother I hear the phrase “I could never give my baby away.” This makes me feel like a bad person, like a sinner, like I made a mistake. I have said this before and I will probably say it again, but I still do not think placing Charlie was a mistake. The acts that led up to his conception were mistakes, but giving life to him and subsequently... more

My co-blogger, Heather’s recent post about the media’s ignorance in portraying birthparents got me thinking about my own rant. They not only are ignorant about birthparents but about the whole adoption subject as a whole and will use it at any time to make a story "juicier." This subject has been on my mind a lot lately as the subject of adoption keeps coming up in the news more and more.

Have you noticed how the media uses adoption to describe people in... more

I enjoyed the change of format in my post in the open adoption blog yesterday entitled Top 10 Ways to Keep an Open Adoption Running Smoothly and was inspired to do more “lists” so today I give you my top five things you should not say to pregnant women considering adoption.

If you are pregnant and considering adoption, feel free to send this link to people who are supporting you in your pregnancy. After my first... more

Starting each Wednesday in this New Year, I will feature a different web link. By “web link” I mean that it can be an article, a website, a blog, or just basically anything on the World Wide Web related to adoption or pregnancy. Some of the web links I feature may solely be adoption related while others may be more pregnancy related, but either way as an expectant mother considering adoption, I hope these links will be helpful to you during your pregnancy and as you try to make a decision regarding adoption. If you know of a web link related to adoption or pregnancy that... more

Now that 2006 has come and gone, Baby Center has published their annual Baby Names of the Year list. I always find these lists interesting.

Before I share the list, let me just remind expectant moms who may be making adoption plans that you do have the right to choose a name for your child. I have covered this topic before in past posts that I will provide links to at the bottom of this post.

The list is extensive and includes the top 100 baby names of 2006 for both boy and girl names but I will just share... more