When you give up a child...

Lorraine

What was life after relinquish a child to adoption? What did we natural birth mothers do in those early years? How did we cope?

One day at a time. I had come to the realization in the hospital that I could either be a crazy woman weeping on the floor forever, or I would have to stand up and move forward in my life. It actually felt like a viable choice.

I was alone, in a city (Rochester, N.Y.), far from family (in the Detroit suburbs), and my only support was the (married) father who had been paying my rent and all other expenses for the past four months. I needed a job, and quickly. Going back to The Democrat & Chronicle, where I had been working as a feature writer and reporter, was out of the question; I turned to a temp agency--and was promptly offered a job there as a proof reader.

How the daughter I gave up forever changed my life

Lorraine

When did I decide that I was never going to have another child, or more correctly, when I did I know that I never would?

As soon as my daughter was born.

I knew this in my bones. I didn't voice this to anyone, and at the time my daughter's father, Patrick, kept saying that we would be together. Later. After she was given up is what he meant.