Imaginary Birthmother's Letter, Part Two

by Pam Connell | More from this Blogger

06 Sep 2007 02:42 PM

This is the continuation of a letter I imagined a birthmother might write. The last blog contains the first part. Again, this is my imagination and is not based on any birthmother that I know.

The letter continues:

By this time something else had happened. I began to feel you inside me. I was very scared, but also excited. It is exciting to have a human being growing inside of you. Sometimes you kicked me if you heard a loud noise. Other times it seemed like you calmed down if I spoke softly. I thought about wanting to be a good mother to you and to do what was best for you. But I didn't have much time to think, because I had to keep trying to get jobs.

I also kept moving, since I didn't have a place of my own. At first, my aunt let me stay with her, but when my pregnancy began to really show my uncle said I had to leave before their neighbors saw me. I had to go back to taking turns staying at different friends' homes.

Sometimes I worked two jobs at a time, going from one to the other and not finishing until late at night. Sometimes I couldn't get any jobs and I would skip lunch because I didn't have enough money.

Mostly I worried a lot. How could I raise you if I didn't have a place to live or enough money for my own lunch? Still, part of me kept hoping that if I worked really hard I could find a way.

When I was staying at a friend's house, I did not go out with them but stayed home alone whenever I wasn't working or looking for work, so no one would see me pregnant. In Korea, people say not-so-nice things to a woman who is pregnant but not married.

I thought you would be born in November, but in October I began to feel contractions in my belly. I panicked. I worried that it was too soon, and that you would come while I still didn't have a place for both of us to live. I didn't really know how to take care of a baby! I was still a teen-ager myself!

....to be continued.....

Please see these related blogs:

Who Are the Birthparents who Place Children for Adoption? Part One

Imaginary Birthmother's Letter, Part One

Book: I Wish for You a Beautiful Life: Letters from the Korean birthmothers of Ae Ran Won

Learn more about Pam Connell

Pam Connell is a mother of three by both birth and adoption. She has worked in education, child care, social services, ministry and journalism.

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