Northwestern Essay

I am responding to prompt number 3 on the Northwestern application: "An old expression says, "what is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right." Give an exapmle of a time when you made a choice that was not popular, but you felt was right. Why did you make this choice? What happened as a result?"

In a small town like mine, public opinion prevails, so when I became pregnant at fourteen, everywhere I went I was told what everyone thought. Two main opinions prevailed: either I should have an abortion to “spare it the pain it would have coming from an underage mother,” or keep the baby, “because that’s okay now.” Nowhere did I hear anything about the choice I wanted to make, adoption. Everywhere I went, not only was I judged for being young and pregnant, but also because I was giving my daughter up.

I planned on placing my daughter in an open adoption, where the child knows they are adopted, and the adoptive family and the birth parents keep in touch. However, circumstances intervened, and legally I could not place my daughter for adoption when she was born. She wound up living with me for six months.

Painfully, I turned into Mommy instead of just a mother, and I loved it, and loved her. I loved how she smelled, how she felt. I loved playing with her, singing to her, even changing her diapers made me smile. I watched her grow, watched as she outgrew the clothes I had worn as a baby, and watched her realize what things were, and who I was. I almost cried when she’d turn to me instead of anyone else, when she claimed me as her Mommy. However, as I pretended that everything would turn out well, as I ignored the classes I was failing, as I pretended that college and a job would work out perfectly with my daughter, I knew deep down inside that it was best for both her and myself if she was adopted. So once things worked out, I kept to my original decision, and decided to place my child with a loving, caring, wonderful family. Then I had to face the realities of my choice.

I gave my daughter away the Friday before Mothers' Day.

After I gave my daughter to her new family, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move. All I knew at that moment was that my baby girl was gone, wasn't mine anymore. Never could anything else hurt so much- I couldn’t think, I couldn’t do anything, because my baby was gone. Packing her clothes and soap and stroller and crib up felt like burying her. As I drifted through the next few days, I clung to the fact that she was in a better place now, that she had a real mommy and a real daddy, a real family who could give her what I never could. Time passed, and more and more I learned to deal with the hurt and loss, and almost rejoiced in her new life. I exchanged emails with her adoptive parents. I had a visit with them once in a while. And I learned that while I may bear this loss for the rest of my life, I know that I have given my daughter everything that I could.

I named her Hope.