“I want to ask you something,” said N., “but I’m sure you’ll say no.”
You’re not expecting an answer now. You’re asking her to consider it, right? I prompted.
“Yes, I want you to consider it, and let me know as soon as you can.” All this delivered with head down and eyes fixed on fingernails digging at the wound she’d cut into the skin between her thumb and hand.
“What is it?” asked the other woman, too busy until that moment with the drooling, gnawing baby on her knee to enter the conversation.
“Would you think about taking this baby?” she asked.
The silence lead me to believe that she’d not been expecting this very question, though how that could be was altogether beyond me. She’d known about the pregnancy for weeks, and how I ended up with my son for far longer. Surely she guessed that soon she’d face a similar request.
Then the questions started: Was the due date certain? Had she carefully considered all her options? Would she work once again with the agency that had placed her previous babies? And most importantly, what was this child’s father’s stance on a potential adoption?
I could bear no more. I retreated to the kitchen with the excuse of starting lunch but the thought of a similar scene which played out on that very spot four years previously, resulting in the unexpected addition of another small human to my already overwhelmed family made my eyes suddenly wet. I listened to them: One voice almost pleading, the other calm, offering one reason after the next for why the placement might not happen. I made the rice, sliced the chicken and tried not to listen; I clung to the conversation N. and I had shared the night before in which she swore, she promised, she vowed that this would be her final pregnancy. “I guess I’m just not meant to raise any children,” she said, then described her hopes that immediately after delivery a permanent form of birth control could be implemented.
I’m holding you too that, I said to her, and I hope (oh how I hope) that she carries through with this plan, because I have had enough.
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***Programming Note: I’m sure you’ve noticed that lately I’ve been working my fanny off on the Scarleteen fund raiser . While I’m honored and grateful to have been chosen by Heather Corinna to help with this task, it’s left precious little time or energy for ritin wurds and for this I apologize. I’d like to thank everyone who’s written, Tweeted, Facebooked and donated in support of Scarleteen, but I’ve got to let you know that the money that’s been raised so far this year has been way less than in years past. This worries me greatly. If you haven’t given yet, consider a small, recurring donation spread over the months of 2011, please? Find out how here, and help me sleep just a little better at night.
I sincerely hope this works out, and I sincerely hope that N follows through on her decision.
I really hopes ot works out too… but I have to say, In my sole and only opinion… N needs to grow up and raise this child. It is unfair, not to mention a very strong burden, to place that apon you, who have noth only your own children, but her’s as well. The child deserves the best chance at life. But that chance will always be with her mother. She cannot hide behind reasons or excuses anymore… It’s time for her to live Life.
I know you would take that child in if you could, and it may still happen… but N is living a dream… a very terrible dream. Perhapse that confrontation would wake her up. Her lack of Responcibility (only in not becoming the full mother to these children and changing to be that, the fact that is is taking these steps to ensure her children are well raised is a responcible thing…) is only going to cause more stress and more hardships.
I apologise to anyone offended by my views… But, after the first two (or three, i’ve lost count) one would expect a lesson to be learned… and the fact that you gotta take care of what you bring into the world. Choosing to keep the embryo, but not keep the child… is hiding.
((P.S. i didn’t mean that last comment to everyone to places children for adoption… but for this case. where this would be the third(forth?) time.))
First time, second time or fiftieth time — children are not punishment. A child cannot force its parent to grow up. The most responsible, grown-up choice might be to find a suitable placement.
“The child deserves the best chance at life. But that chance will always be with her mother.”
Oh really. Do you honestly believe that children are always better off with their birth parents?
As a mother by adoption twice over I’d love to see how you justify this claim. Studies? Research? Science?
No?
Furthermore, children are not and should never be punishment. A child is not born into a role of forcing hir mother to grow up or to learn a lesson.
And sometimes, taking care of who you bring into the world means finding that child a better home than you can provide.
Is it bad that I want to go in and correct this guy’s spelling before the verbal smack down continues?
Do you really need to take offense to my grammer? I type faster then I read at times. I apologise for it.
Well-expressed, AAG.
I just want to break out in a chorus of Tom Lehrer’s Boy Scout song. “Don’t write dirty words on walls if you can’t spell” has always struck me as extensible wisdom. There are worse adages than “never take badly-spelled advice.”
If you can’t spell “responsibility” you can’t suggest that others get it.
Yes?
Ow… I didn’t mean to make it as such a backlash. I really didn’t. And i did also apologise in advance.
Perhapse I shouldn’t comment about these matters anymore. I simply said how the situation made me feel. No, children are never a punsihment. They are a gift, and a blessing for thoes who want them.
I apologise again. My comments were taken out of the context of what I had meant to say… Which, I guess, was that the situation felt wrong with me. I did say making sure the children were “well raised.” by that, meaning that they have the best chance for a good life, as being “responsible”.
… I am sorry I spoke about it. I can’t take it back, but it felt like, to me, that she is still living a dream.
If she knows she can’t raise her children well, the best solution is to find someone who can.
It’s not a perfect solution by any means. Few solutions are.
But I find no evidence anywhere to suggest that a child is ALWAYS better off with its birth parents.
I understand and agree with you. I guess it was more of a reaction of “Why do you keep bringing children into the world, if you do not have the means to raise them?” It just seemed to me that it lack reason of a very significant scale.
Just feels like to me that, by continuing to place herself into this situation, (and by that I am recalling that you said she was going to take similar preparations to prevent the pregnancy she is currently in, but failed to do so.) that she is causing alot of unexpressed grief and worry to thoes to care for her and her children.
I’ll say that the comment of children always having the best chance with their mother was more of a expression on my part, of it being the ideal goal of having children. I have nothing against adoptions at all. I was being blunt over a sensitive situation, which I probably should have not said anything.
Got it in one!
I dislike that you all take a lack of spell-checking to make my opinion to be meaningless. I’ve always admired everything that AAG has typed out, and yes, in the past my responces or opinions have caused some backlash. But I do not post them to cause that. I post them to only show another view. If AAG, or anyone else, wishs me to not respond, I will stop doing so. Or if they want me to clarify, I will gladly do so as well.
I don’t think your opinion is meaningless. I think your opinion in this case is reactionary and ill-informed.
You may continue to speak your mind as you see fit. I will continue to respond to you as I see fit.
@Mark — I absolutely agree with you that she’s causing everyone (most importantly herself) a world of grief. I can’t fix this for her. She’s going to have to fix it for herself.
All I can do is encourage her to make the best possible plan for the child she’s now carrying. Trying to punish her — and by extension the child! — by somehow forcing her to raise it would be pointless.