Signed Away

Point B
My mom sent me across the state to an unwed mother’s home when I was 5 months pregnant with you. Your dad and I dated all through high school and wanted to get married so my mother’s decision was totally unexpected. In most ways, I felt completely isolated. It was like a nightmare that didn’t stop. Now as an adult and 46 years later, I really believe that I started to go into shock the day we told my parents that I was pregnant. Each day I withdrew into my shell with the hope of becoming numb to my feelings.

I gave birth to you all alone on a snowy Saturday evening. On Sunday they placed you in my arms for the one and only time. I was released from the hospital on Wednesday and returned to the unwed mother’s home. They led me into an office to sign the completed adoption form. I left immediately with my parents for the drive back home. I returned to my high school on Monday as if I’d never been gone.

So for me signing that paper was the mistake. One that I will always regret. My signature changed 3 lives that day. Yours, your dad and mine.

Point A:
I am still flabbergasted that I was a part of a legal contract at the age of a few days. How can someone be held accountable to a document for the rest of their life, when they were not privy to the details in the first place? My state requires of me, that which no other citizen is required, to perpetually abide to a contract of never having what is rightfully mine… my original birth certificate.

Even as an adult, I am restricted by the legality of those papers, which were supposedly in my best interest… well who’s best interest is it in now? Not mine!

Image Descriptions for Accessibility:

1. Outline of Iowa with the word “DENIED” stamped across it in bold black letters.

2. A hand signing a document, with highlighted warnings: “WAIT!!! Think before YOU sign. Signing will change our lives FOREVER.” At the bottom: “Loving the boy, getting pregnant and choosing life were not a mistake. Signing the papers were.”