As speechless as I am, I need to find the words to say this. The way your story has so… indirectly but directly addressed something I’ve always known but never.. thought about consciously is.. altering my brain chemistry. My mom is adopted. The story has always been “well her mother (my grandmother/moms adoptive mother) has always used the word mother.. NOT birth mother) was only 15. We were on the list for a baby, (I think this was not simply because they ONLY wanted a newborn, but because they weren’t interested in foster care? I’m not certain) and we knew it could take months, years, or never to be picked for a baby. Without any notice or “pre-picking” or whatever… we got a call that there was a baby down in Boise, Idaho. The mother was 15, and her family ONLY wanted this baby to go to an Italian Catholic family. So we left immediately… to go and get your mom” and my whole life this story has never bothered me. Or felt any type of way. It just.. was the story of my mothers birth. I never thought twice about it. My grandparents never conceived. They never knew why, it just didn’t happen. They weren’t so desperate to have a child that they jumped through hoops to make a baby… but they knew they wanted to be parents. They put their names on a list and did whatever what was required of them for that in the early 70s.. and much like people do when they’re married and want a baby.. they said “if we’re meant to have a baby.. the baby will come” and.. it did. So it always just felt like a beautiful story. A “meant to be” scenario. But there’s always been a few key words that I never realized had as much weight as they did.. and that’s the part where my grandma said “yours moms FAMILY… wanted your mom to go to an Italian Catholic family..” not “it was important to your mom’s mother” but.. it was important to the family… assuming that means.. my moms mother’s PARENTS.. listening to your story coming from a family of adoption… (my mom & also my sister) is so hard to hear because we want to believe this was a beautiful “meant to be” and everyone is so happy. And we are. I can’t imagine life without my baby sister. Or my grandparents (my moms adoptive parents). But the WEIGHT you have allowed me to realize of that ONE major detail of my mothers birth/adoption story… “her family wanted…” I now suddenly feel like I’m listening to the story of my mother’s mother. And for the first time in my whole life my brain has gone further and I’m now feeling like I’m watching the traumatic gut wrenching story of my.. MY grandmother. Before now, I’ve somehow forgotten that I have a grandmother.. who almost definitely faced this exact same trauma. And it’s like I can feel that residual trauma in my blood. I was an egg inside my mothers body the day she was likely forcibly ripped from my grandmother’s arms. I was physically inside of my mother at the same time she was growing inside of her mother. I have a grandmother who I’ve never known. And watching your story is what it took for me to realize that. For me to know her in some way. I don’t know if thanking you for that is the appropriate sentiment… but i certainly thank you for the clarity. It’s so painful but Im welcoming it. Much love to you Abbie. ❤
My eyes are full of tears. 🧡🧡🧡 Yes, exactly, you were an egg in your mother, in your lost grandmothers womb. Yes, i know exactly what you’re saying, you can feel it in your blood, the loss, the generational trauma. I’m very moved by your story. I’m grateful to know my sharing has offered you deeper connection to your own story 🧡🧡
For so long (as someone with a genetic disease) I felt it was my destiny. My duty.. to adopt a child as my grandmother, and my mother did. That it would be selfish to create a child who could carry a deadly disease.. when kids are out there without parents. I completely empathize with the perspective of the adoptive parent. But you have changed my perspective forever. I will break this generational curse and instead advocate for supporting mothers in less ideal circumstances.. instead of advocating for adoption. ❤🥲
I tried so hard to hold the tears back but that’s impossible. I ugly cried for the duration of this whole video. Abbi, I am genuinely sorry that you were treated less than human, less than a mother… unfair doesn’t even begin to describe your story. I can only relate to you and your pregnancy and the first 72 hours of motherhood a TINY amount. I had my first at 14 & was harassed, verbally, mentally and physically abused by my parents, and bullied to such extremes by my peers in school I wanted to end my life. It’s been almost 16 years since then and those memories are forever engrained into my brain. It’ll never go away. I remember the feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, fear, and feeling like I was a ward of the state with absolutely ZERO say so over my body, my healthcare, my labor and birth, and ultimately my child. I still don’t know how in the world I managed to get through being and feeling like a caged animal, but someway, somehow… I did. I pushed through the feelings of wanting to unalive myself and now, I know it was nothing else than those motherly instincts that were in full force and I was in survival mode. I was harassed and abused at the beginning of my pregnancy because “I needed to abort that thing” and after about 3 months in, it was harassment and abused to get me to comply to giving my baby up. After how I was treated for the entirety of my pregnancy, I felt like this baby was my only hope of love and a life that felt worthy of living. I knew she would love me despite ANY faults or flaws. I remember at 32 weeks pregnant I was sitting on the side walk in the middle of the town I lived in and I was rubbing my belly and I was just in the moment with my baby. I was fully present, just she and I even though she was in utero. That day I made a promise to her that I’d fight for her no matter what, and I meant no matter what. I didn’t care that I was only a 14 year old child. She was mine and I had a right to her and the right to choose motherhood if I so wanted to, and I chose motherhood. I knew it would be hard but I was willing and ready to face the harsh realities as a mother when I was still just a child myself. That baby will be 16 in November and despite being younger than her current age when I had her, she saved me in ways she’ll never understand. She was my saving grace 🫶🏼 we have the best mother/daughter bond and I am so in love with her & so lucky to be her mother. But hearing your story and stories, really shine light on just how lucky and privileged I was to be able to fight those literal demons that rebuked me walking into motherhood and raising my own child. I took my baby home and didn’t allow anyone to come anywhere near us for the first 3 months of her life. I was completely traumatized and feared that someone would take her and they would only do so if they removed her from my cold, dead hands. I cannot relate to a large part of your experience and I am very fortune for that. I will never ever take that for granted. I’d be lying if I said stories like yours didn’t rip my heart to absolute shreds and makes me so angry. Raising awareness is great and it’s necessary. Actually, its crucial… but when will the voices of mothers like yourself be heard?! When will changes be made?! 😭 I will share your story far and wide and bring awareness to these evil atrocities. That’s the very least I can do! I pray for your healing and peace as I can imagine this is something you will be grieving your entire life. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart for being so brave to share your story 🫶🏼
I’m sorry Abbi. I’m sure you speak for so many women who weren’t supported. Your experience is horrifying and your anguish is palpable and heartbreaking. I wish I could give that young woman that was and (is) you a big hug.
Abbi, telling your story in the raw, painful, loving, thoughtful, and incredibly articulate way that you have is both important and heroic. Anyone watching will just want to hug you and take all your pain away, if only we could. You’re so real, and you bring all that pain to life inside all of us and we share your hurt and hope that you and your son are reunited one day, and we hope things will change. And maybe they will. Maybe you will be what helps the whole flawed process pivot to create a new paradigm that is sensitive to the complex needs of all involved. Your stories might just wake up the people leading the institutions that are still structured around the ideas from people of long ago and far away. People who were probably mostly, or maybe even exclusively men who were products of their time, and we don’t need to rehash the well-known undercurrents of all of that. The impact of which on the issue of unwed teen mothers and adoption have been made crystal clear, thanks to you. Thanks to you we all know how flawed, how lacking in compassion, how devoid of fairness and basic human rights, how cruel and insensitive, and sadly, how profit oriented the whole messy institution of adoption has evolved into. And not only have you bravely held up a mirror for the adoption agencies to see themselves cast in that unflattering light but imagine how your story has lifted the hearts of adopted children who can now see the unbreakable bond of natural love between a mother and child. They will know their own mothers felt that way too and it will comfort them immeasurably. And imagine that one day your own son might see this, maybe even right now, without realizing that you are her, and he will treasure the loving feelings that you have filled him with and answered his secret hopes with. I was a teen father who’s tiny, beautiful daughter was ripped from our lives and given to another family. And we missed her and pined for her every single day, with all the ugly emotion that I see in your videos. Sadly, her mother died and the two would never meet. How fate could be that cruel is hard to imagine, but I was reunited with our daughter, and we have enjoyed a loving relationship for over 25 years now. I hope the following comments aren’t out of place, but I want to share a perspective I gained when I was preparing for our reunion. I suddenly heard from the sister of the poor, deceased birth mom, telling me that her parents wanted to start a search for our long-lost daughter. I explained how far along I was in the process, and they pleaded to be included in a family reunion celebration. They were the very people who made us hide in the basement if visitors came. They were the ones who took over and arranged the adoption and forced us down that road. They were unpleasant and to us they seemed cruel, uncaring, mean, and self-centered. We kept everything secret from my parents. I held feelings of resentment toward them for the entire 22 years to that moment. Now that their own daughter was gone, they wanted their granddaughter in their lives. I immediately thought about it from our daughter’s likely perspective and presumed (correctly) that she would want to meet and know them. That in turn made me think about things from the perspectives of my late girlfriends’ father, mother, sister, and brother. Their lives had been playing out normally. It was a loving family, and the parents were as supportive as any of the day. They had plans and dreams for their children. And then we dropped a bomb in the middle of all that bliss. I can now see how surreal it all became, and it was our fault, not theirs. I had never considered that before. They all reacted as they did to protect their own lives, including their pregnant daughters’, and to try to live as normally, as possible without what we did impacting the community all around us. Suddenly realizing that we were accountable and at fault and had actually been the cause of all this anguish and disruption, helped me to forgive all their actions and choices. More importantly it made me realize that I needed to ask for their forgiveness for all we had put them through. This led to our daughter finally enjoying the love and support from her mother’s family that she had been missing all those years. And of course, my 4 brothers and sisters and my parents and my assorted nieces and nephews all love her so much. Accepting accountability brought forgiveness and understanding. It brought love, calm, and joy into our lives. But what if the adoption agencies had been structured to help mother and child stay together. What if they recognized the impact on extended families and intervened to help them through it and make sure there was a plan in place to keep the family whole, including the new baby. No one ever helped us understand the scope of the impact our actions caused. Instead, we felt like victims. And now I understand that we all felt like victims. But we were kids and could only go with the flow. We wanted to marry and keep our baby but had no idea that we would be allowed to or how it might work if we did. Her parents were motivated by love for their daughter and wanted her to fulfil their version of her destiny. Nobody was there to help them understand the impact of giving that baby away. There was only an institution helping them to believe they were doing the right and noble thing. Those institutions need to accept accountability for that. For all the lives they have ruined. For all the pain they have cause. None of that was our fault. Now thanks to you, the flaws of those ancient ideas have been exposed, the impact of giving babies away is made clear in your video and by the replies. We can all hope that thanks to you changes will follow.
To see this much emotion from you, so many years after the event has occured, makes my heart hurt for you; that no one offered to help you, asked how you were doing, or layed out your options to you. I hope you can someday forgive not only yourself (you were only 17) and your husband, but your parents, his parents and staff, Forgive for yourself. I hope you and your son get reunited someday.
Did your parents force you to give the baby up. As a mother I would never do that. I know I would be devastated if that happened to me. Giving birth was the highlight of my life. You never forget. I am sure one day your son will see this video. When is a man, he will meet you and you two will have a relationship. This I am sure.
I am crying my eyes out. THIS is why I supported my 17 yo. I am so sorry this happened to you. You deserved support. You deserved to be heard.
As speechless as I am, I need to find the words to say this. The way your story has so… indirectly but directly addressed something I’ve always known but never.. thought about consciously is.. altering my brain chemistry. My mom is adopted. The story has always been “well her mother (my grandmother/moms adoptive mother) has always used the word mother.. NOT birth mother) was only 15. We were on the list for a baby, (I think this was not simply because they ONLY wanted a newborn, but because they weren’t interested in foster care? I’m not certain) and we knew it could take months, years, or never to be picked for a baby. Without any notice or “pre-picking” or whatever… we got a call that there was a baby down in Boise, Idaho. The mother was 15, and her family ONLY wanted this baby to go to an Italian Catholic family. So we left immediately… to go and get your mom” and my whole life this story has never bothered me. Or felt any type of way. It just.. was the story of my mothers birth. I never thought twice about it. My grandparents never conceived. They never knew why, it just didn’t happen. They weren’t so desperate to have a child that they jumped through hoops to make a baby… but they knew they wanted to be parents. They put their names on a list and did whatever what was required of them for that in the early 70s.. and much like people do when they’re married and want a baby.. they said “if we’re meant to have a baby.. the baby will come” and.. it did. So it always just felt like a beautiful story. A “meant to be” scenario.
But there’s always been a few key words that I never realized had as much weight as they did.. and that’s the part where my grandma said “yours moms FAMILY… wanted your mom to go to an Italian Catholic family..” not “it was important to your mom’s mother” but.. it was important to the family… assuming that means.. my moms mother’s PARENTS.. listening to your story coming from a family of adoption… (my mom & also my sister) is so hard to hear because we want to believe this was a beautiful “meant to be” and everyone is so happy. And we are. I can’t imagine life without my baby sister. Or my grandparents (my moms adoptive parents). But the WEIGHT you have allowed me to realize of that ONE major detail of my mothers birth/adoption story… “her family wanted…” I now suddenly feel like I’m listening to the story of my mother’s mother. And for the first time in my whole life my brain has gone further and I’m now feeling like I’m watching the traumatic gut wrenching story of my.. MY grandmother. Before now, I’ve somehow forgotten that I have a grandmother.. who almost definitely faced this exact same trauma. And it’s like I can feel that residual trauma in my blood. I was an egg inside my mothers body the day she was likely forcibly ripped from my grandmother’s arms. I was physically inside of my mother at the same time she was growing inside of her mother. I have a grandmother who I’ve never known. And watching your story is what it took for me to realize that. For me to know her in some way. I don’t know if thanking you for that is the appropriate sentiment… but i certainly thank you for the clarity. It’s so painful but Im welcoming it. Much love to you Abbie. ❤
My eyes are full of tears. 🧡🧡🧡 Yes, exactly, you were an egg in your mother, in your lost grandmothers womb. Yes, i know exactly what you’re saying, you can feel it in your blood, the loss, the generational trauma. I’m very moved by your story. I’m grateful to know my sharing has offered you deeper connection to your own story 🧡🧡
For so long (as someone with a genetic disease) I felt it was my destiny. My duty.. to adopt a child as my grandmother, and my mother did. That it would be selfish to create a child who could carry a deadly disease.. when kids are out there without parents. I completely empathize with the perspective of the adoptive parent. But you have changed my perspective forever. I will break this generational curse and instead advocate for supporting mothers in less ideal circumstances.. instead of advocating for adoption. ❤🥲
I tried so hard to hold the tears back but that’s impossible. I ugly cried for the duration of this whole video. Abbi, I am genuinely sorry that you were treated less than human, less than a mother… unfair doesn’t even begin to describe your story. I can only relate to you and your pregnancy and the first 72 hours of motherhood a TINY amount. I had my first at 14 & was harassed, verbally, mentally and physically abused by my parents, and bullied to such extremes by my peers in school I wanted to end my life. It’s been almost 16 years since then and those memories are forever engrained into my brain. It’ll never go away. I remember the feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, fear, and feeling like I was a ward of the state with absolutely ZERO say so over my body, my healthcare, my labor and birth, and ultimately my child. I still don’t know how in the world I managed to get through being and feeling like a caged animal, but someway, somehow… I did. I pushed through the feelings of wanting to unalive myself and now, I know it was nothing else than those motherly instincts that were in full force and I was in survival mode. I was harassed and abused at the beginning of my pregnancy because “I needed to abort that thing” and after about 3 months in, it was harassment and abused to get me to comply to giving my baby up. After how I was treated for the entirety of my pregnancy, I felt like this baby was my only hope of love and a life that felt worthy of living. I knew she would love me despite ANY faults or flaws. I remember at 32 weeks pregnant I was sitting on the side walk in the middle of the town I lived in and I was rubbing my belly and I was just in the moment with my baby. I was fully present, just she and I even though she was in utero. That day I made a promise to her that I’d fight for her no matter what, and I meant no matter what. I didn’t care that I was only a 14 year old child. She was mine and I had a right to her and the right to choose motherhood if I so wanted to, and I chose motherhood. I knew it would be hard but I was willing and ready to face the harsh realities as a mother when I was still just a child myself.
That baby will be 16 in November and despite being younger than her current age when I had her, she saved me in ways she’ll never understand. She was my saving grace 🫶🏼 we have the best mother/daughter bond and I am so in love with her & so lucky to be her mother. But hearing your story and stories, really shine light on just how lucky and privileged I was to be able to fight those literal demons that rebuked me walking into motherhood and raising my own child.
I took my baby home and didn’t allow anyone to come anywhere near us for the first 3 months of her life. I was completely traumatized and feared that someone would take her and they would only do so if they removed her from my cold, dead hands.
I cannot relate to a large part of your experience and I am very fortune for that. I will never ever take that for granted. I’d be lying if I said stories like yours didn’t rip my heart to absolute shreds and makes me so angry. Raising awareness is great and it’s necessary. Actually, its crucial… but when will the voices of mothers like yourself be heard?! When will changes be made?! 😭
I will share your story far and wide and bring awareness to these evil atrocities. That’s the very least I can do! I pray for your healing and peace as I can imagine this is something you will be grieving your entire life.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart for being so brave to share your story 🫶🏼
I’m sorry Abbi. I’m sure you speak for so many women who weren’t supported. Your experience is horrifying and your anguish is palpable and heartbreaking.
I wish I could give that young woman that was and (is) you a big hug.
Abbi, telling your story in the raw, painful, loving, thoughtful, and incredibly articulate way that you have is both important and heroic. Anyone watching will just want to hug you and take all your pain away, if only we could. You’re so real, and you bring all that pain to life inside all of us and we share your hurt and hope that you and your son are reunited one day, and we hope things will change. And maybe they will. Maybe you will be what helps the whole flawed process pivot to create a new paradigm that is sensitive to the complex needs of all involved. Your stories might just wake up the people leading the institutions that are still structured around the ideas from people of long ago and far away. People who were probably mostly, or maybe even exclusively men who were products of their time, and we don’t need to rehash the well-known undercurrents of all of that. The impact of which on the issue of unwed teen mothers and adoption have been made crystal clear, thanks to you.
Thanks to you we all know how flawed, how lacking in compassion, how devoid of fairness and basic human rights, how cruel and insensitive, and sadly, how profit oriented the whole messy institution of adoption has evolved into. And not only have you bravely held up a mirror for the adoption agencies to see themselves cast in that unflattering light but imagine how your story has lifted the hearts of adopted children who can now see the unbreakable bond of natural love between a mother and child. They will know their own mothers felt that way too and it will comfort them immeasurably. And imagine that one day your own son might see this, maybe even right now, without realizing that you are her, and he will treasure the loving feelings that you have filled him with and answered his secret hopes with.
I was a teen father who’s tiny, beautiful daughter was ripped from our lives and given to another family. And we missed her and pined for her every single day, with all the ugly emotion that I see in your videos. Sadly, her mother died and the two would never meet. How fate could be that cruel is hard to imagine, but I was reunited with our daughter, and we have enjoyed a loving relationship for over 25 years now.
I hope the following comments aren’t out of place, but I want to share a perspective I gained when I was preparing for our reunion.
I suddenly heard from the sister of the poor, deceased birth mom, telling me that her parents wanted to start a search for our long-lost daughter. I explained how far along I was in the process, and they pleaded to be included in a family reunion celebration. They were the very people who made us hide in the basement if visitors came. They were the ones who took over and arranged the adoption and forced us down that road. They were unpleasant and to us they seemed cruel, uncaring, mean, and self-centered. We kept everything secret from my parents. I held feelings of resentment toward them for the entire 22 years to that moment. Now that their own daughter was gone, they wanted their granddaughter in their lives.
I immediately thought about it from our daughter’s likely perspective and presumed (correctly) that she would want to meet and know them. That in turn made me think about things from the perspectives of my late girlfriends’ father, mother, sister, and brother. Their lives had been playing out normally. It was a loving family, and the parents were as supportive as any of the day. They had plans and dreams for their children. And then we dropped a bomb in the middle of all that bliss. I can now see how surreal it all became, and it was our fault, not theirs. I had never considered that before. They all reacted as they did to protect their own lives, including their pregnant daughters’, and to try to live as normally, as possible without what we did impacting the community all around us. Suddenly realizing that we were accountable and at fault and had actually been the cause of all this anguish and disruption, helped me to forgive all their actions and choices. More importantly it made me realize that I needed to ask for their forgiveness for all we had put them through. This led to our daughter finally enjoying the love and support from her mother’s family that she had been missing all those years. And of course, my 4 brothers and sisters and my parents and my assorted nieces and nephews all love her so much. Accepting accountability brought forgiveness and understanding. It brought love, calm, and joy into our lives.
But what if the adoption agencies had been structured to help mother and child stay together. What if they recognized the impact on extended families and intervened to help them through it and make sure there was a plan in place to keep the family whole, including the new baby. No one ever helped us understand the scope of the impact our actions caused. Instead, we felt like victims. And now I understand that we all felt like victims. But we were kids and could only go with the flow. We wanted to marry and keep our baby but had no idea that we would be allowed to or how it might work if we did. Her parents were motivated by love for their daughter and wanted her to fulfil their version of her destiny. Nobody was there to help them understand the impact of giving that baby away. There was only an institution helping them to believe they were doing the right and noble thing. Those institutions need to accept accountability for that. For all the lives they have ruined. For all the pain they have cause. None of that was our fault.
Now thanks to you, the flaws of those ancient ideas have been exposed, the impact of giving babies away is made clear in your video and by the replies. We can all hope that thanks to you changes will follow.
To see this much emotion from you, so many years after the event has occured, makes my heart hurt for you; that no one offered to help you, asked how you were doing, or layed out your options to you. I hope you can someday forgive not only yourself (you were only 17) and your husband, but your parents, his parents and staff, Forgive for yourself. I hope you and your son get reunited someday.
I am coming from reddit fourth wave feminism subreddit.I never thought about adoption like that.Thanks for sharing your story.This should be viral.
😭💔 Your story is so devastating. I wish so badly that I could fix it.
I’m so sorry you had to go through this ❤x
Did your parents force you to give the baby up. As a mother I would never do that. I know I would be devastated if that happened to me. Giving birth was the highlight of my life. You never forget. I am sure one day your son will see this video. When is a man, he will meet you and you two will have a relationship. This I am sure.
This makes me angry. Your parents should be fully ashamed
This is devastating! They were cruel. Yes they were