Q for ‘Pro-Lifers’: How many kids have you ADOPTED from

[renie408]

68. What a wonderful CHOICE you made.

I had an abortion when I was 19. I am now 48, married and have two great kids; 20 and 16. When I was 19 I was working for a local horse farm breaking in colts and reworking tough horses. I got pregnant while taking birth control with the man that I am now married to. We were high school sweethearts. My parents told me flatly that I was on my own. I was 19, earning $195 a week and was told by my employer that as much as he would hate to, he would have to let me go if I continued the pregnancy. You can't really break colts pregnant. Riding and training horses was the only thing other than working at McDonald's that I could do at the time. My then boyfriend told me that he would support me as best he could, but that would mean dropping out of school. He is younger than I am. We thought and debated and tried to come up with a solution. We finally decided to have an abortion. A couple of years later we got married and a few years after that, at the age of 27, I had my first child. Motherhood has been the defining role of my life. I have worked hard to be a good mother to my children. I have help from a really good man, and we have raised two intelligent, hardworking, caring, giving kids. I have built a relatively successful horse training, boarding and riding lesson program that has sustained us through this horrible economic situation.

I sometimes wonder about that child that might have been. I wonder what they would have been like. But I don't wonder about whether or not I made the right CHOICE. I wouldn't have been the same mother at 19, when I had literally never held a baby, that I was at 27. I think that I might very possibly have been a really BAD mother given the stress of no money, no job, no support, too young and a child to raise. I know that for us, an abortion was the only responsible thing to do at the time.

YOU, in your infinite wisdom, think that you have the right to tell ME what to do with my body and my life. The longer I write, the angrier I become. Who the hell are YOU? Who cares if you adopted two or twenty kids? Where were YOU when I was 19 and facing the hardest decision of my life? And where are YOU for the countless thousands of women in this situation today?

You might be the nicest person on earth. But I can't help it, you make me sick. How dare you think that you know what is best for someone else in a situation that effects YOU not at all. And as far as I can tell, you are about 399,998 kids short on adoptions if you are going to hold that high and mighty attitude.

BTW...I got pregnant while taking birth control pills. Twice, actually. That first time and with my son who was born eight years later. After the pregnancy with my son, a doctor told me that some women have hormone issues which make it hard to adjust birth control meds accurately. I am apparently one of them. We then went on to other methods. And now have a lovely daughter.