I made my adoption plan pretty quickly after finding out I was pregnant. I became unexpectedly pregnant due to a failed depo provera shot. When I first heard the news, adoption did creep into my mind but I had no idea how far along I was, so I waited for the ultra sound to think more about my options. The ultrasound revealed that I was over five months along in my pregnancy, twenty two weeks to be exact. Within two weeks of learning how far along I was I had decided that adoption would be the best option for my baby and tentatively chosen a family.

As I got to know S and A better, I spent more time with them and their daughter and grew to love them and knew that they would be the best parents for my baby. I never really referred to the unborn baby as “my baby.” From the second I decided upon S and A the baby became “A’s baby.”

I began to (try) to detach myself from the tiny baby fluttering around inside of me. Sometimes, I’d even try to ignore his ever constant and oh so strong kicking. My (delusional) thought process was that if I didn’t attach to the baby in the womb, if I never thought of him as “my baby” and only referred to him as “A’s baby” that when I left the hospital empty handed it would hurt less.

To avoid a lot of questions about my circumstances, when people asked me about the pregnancy, I would typically just respond with something like “I am having this baby and then letting friends who can’t have children adopt him.” It wasn’t entirely false; we had become friends. But I think instead of convincing strangers, I was trying to convince myself that “I was just having this baby for friends.”

Looking back, I realize that my thought process and those statements were just a defense mechanism. I thought that if I tried not to make myself bond with the baby that placing him would hurt less. That it I didn’t think of him as “my baby,” that “I was just having him for friends” it wouldn’t hurt. But it still did hurt. Now I realize that that time was MY time, it was our time to bond and looking back, I wish I had allowed myself to enjoy more of the kicks and those moments of pregnancy because I think knowing that I purposely denied them hurts more now that it would have had allowed them to happen and then grieved their absence.