Sometimes I think I have a sixth sense for knowing when adoption-related story is about to cross my path. It happened the other day in a doctors office, flipping through an issue of Glamour magazine. I turned the page and saw a photo of a young mother and her baby, and thought, “I bet this has something to do with adoption.”

And I was right. The woman pictured was 25-year-old Elizabeth Audley, and the toddler was her daughter, five-year-old Lauren. Elizabeth became pregnant at age 20 while a sophomore at Wellesley. Though it wasn’t an easy choice, Elizabeth opted to keep her baby, and Lauren was at her mom’s 2006 graduation.

Elizabeth doesn’t pull any punches about the difficulties of single motherhood. “I love Lauren so much, but it was really hard as a single mom to support her and stay in school.” Yet she doesn’t regret her choice, and she has devoted herself to helping other women keep their families intact by founding an organization called Sisters’ Keepers. The group raises money for young moms and helps them complete their education. (From what I can tell, the group seems limited to Wellesley; I didn’t find a national website.)

While trying to track down the group, I found a very interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor. Entitled “Housing Holds Back Moms in College,” the article talks about the need for colleges to provide better housing options to pregnant and parenting women. An example of such a woman is Yissy Perez, who earned her degree in civil engineering while being a single mother to her daughter, now 22 months. Because there was no on-campus housing for moms, Yissy’s baby had to live with her grandmother, two hours away, and mom and baby were only reunited on weekends...a tough situation for everyone involved.

You can read the full article here.