Introductions

Hey everyone!  I'm Monika and since this is my first BirthMom Buds blog post, I thought I'd tell you my adoption story.

Mackenzie (her name is changed to protect her) was born November 10, 2009.  Guess what?  It was a complete surprise to everyone (including me) that I was even pregnant.  I had NO idea.  Being diabetic, it's not uncommon for me to miss periods, and I wore all my own clothes all the way through.  I was about 36 weeks with her when they delivered her, so she was almost full term.  From what I gathered later, no one at the ER knew I was pregnant either until they wanted to do a test on me that required them to know whether I was pregnant or not.  You see, I was having seizures.  I had the first one at home that morning.  My roommate at the time heard me flop to the floor and when she couldn't rouse me, she called 911.  I evidently had at least one more seizure on the way to the hospital.   You see, I don't remember anything from the 10th of November (when I was admitted) to the 14th of November (when they finally released me), so I've had to piece things together the best that I know how from other peoples' stories.

I do remember NOT wanting to hold her or see her after she was delivered via emergency C-section.  I've known for a very long time that even though I love kids, I never wanted to have any of my own.  I thought originally that I would want a closed adoption so I didn't want to hold or see her in the hospital because I thought that it would be too hard on me to have to place her after holding her.  I do regret that.  I regret not holding or seeing her in the hospital, though I'm not certain how much I'd actually remember of holding her.

Without medical history on me, because I had no family in the area (my family is all in Washington state and I was living in mid-Oregon at the time), and because Mackenzie was ready to leave the hospital before I was, the state took her into their custody.  I know that they questioned my ability to make an adoption decision because I was having seizures (due to high blood pressure, not brain issues).  I'm very glad that it happened the way it did, because the additional time gave me the ability to change my mind and request an open adoption instead of a closed one.

After a couple of court dates and finally getting to meet my daughter for the first time on December 11, 2009, I was able to place Mackenzie with her adoptive parents on January 4, 2010.  It was our first time meeting each other.  We didn't even get the opportunity to even talk with each other on the phone.  I picked them by their adoption book, but I had no other contact with them.  I found out much later, almost a year later, in fact, that T & C (Mackenzie's adoptive parents) requested multiple times to have the opportunity to meet me before "adoption day," but they were ignored by our adoption agency.  Going into the meeting, my social worker told me that if I didn't like them or if something struck me as odd about them, that I would have the opportunity to change my mind about them.  That the adoption would still happen, but I would have the opportunity to pick another set of parents for my daughter.  But when I met them, I just knew.  I had no doubt that while God may not have made me get pregnant, He kept her in me despite all my "efforts" (simply from not knowing) to get ride of her, and that He allowed things to happen in my life the way they did so that I could give T and C the gift of a child they'd wanted for so long.

I still console myself with that knowledge when things get rough.  Though I've had sad and rough days (more about those later), I have an extraordinary sense of peace about the whole situation.  I know God's plan is in motion, and that He's with me through every step of the way.