She had come to Abrazo in search of a new beginning.
Not yet thirty, she already felt old. She’d dropped out of school and left home during her first pregnancy, but had lost that child to the State. She dulled the pain with street drugs and went on looking for love in all the wrong places. Another baby was born and lost by court order.
She tried to get clean, but by this time, her arrest record limited her employment options. She moved home again, broke and broken, just in time to learn she was pregnant yet again. The baby’s father couldn’t disappear fast enough, upon learning the news.
Her family offered to help, but she wanted more than that for her baby’s future. It wasn’t that their help wasn’t good enough. It was that her dreams were bigger than that.
She wanted two stable parents to raise her baby. She wanted her child’s parents to be college-educated, to help raise her child to be college-bound. She wanted her baby to have a safe home from day one. She wanted time for herself to get on her feet, to finish her GED, to get well, to quit dodging warrants.
She wanted a new beginning for them both. She knew she could not undo the past, yet it was within her power to reshape their future.
The Right To Choose a New Beginning
Those words bring to mind a very different pregnancy option. Yet the truth is that in America, every woman has every right to choose a new beginning for herself and/or her unborn baby. And open adoption is the one alternative that is too often forgotten.
Adoption is never a simple choice nor an easy out. It is momentous, life-changing, and enormously sacrificial. It is no guarantee of a happy ending, but it is a new beginning for each child, each birthparent and each adoptive parent.
At Abrazo, that new beginning means new relationships. Placement is not an ending, but rather, the start of a new, improved family formation that includes everyone involved.
The child will learn to adapt to a new family. Their adoptive parents will learn to adapt to a new schedule. The birthparents learn to adapt to a new normal, as well. And all of them will adjust to their new roles in each other’s lives.
To choose a new beginning through open adoption means not to leave all that’s old behind, but to reshape it to fit a new future.
For those who are facing unplanned parenthood or who have finished infertility treatment and feel ready to adopt instead, Abrazo offers a brighter alternative. Since January of 1994, Abrazo has offered ethical and reliable open adoption services for children and parents nationwide.
A New Beginning for Adoption
Abrazo makes no secret of the fact that adoption in America is ripe for reform. That’s why Abrazo has always stood for honesty, openness and transparency.
It’s why our agency goes the extra mile to teach adopters why open adoption access is essential. This is why our staff continues to offer free counseling to parents who place in the years following adoption choices. It’s why birthparents, adoptive parents and adoptees can always come back for post-adoption support services.
And it’s why our program so strongly advocates for adoptee rights, including adoptee access to original birth records. (If you live in Texas, please let your lawmakers know this matters to you, too.)
The words of Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb,” ring true in adoption, as well:
“Say this is true: that even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried. That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious… But one thing is certain: if we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.”
Here’s to a new beginning, for your household, for our office and for our entire nation!
