Where to begin?

This is a special post for me and I am hoping that someone out here can help me. I have a really good friend here in my real life. She taught me how to be a teacher, and how to be a mother. I sometimes wonder how I would have survived Mollie in her younger day with out my friend. She would often tell me to pick my battles – Mollie had to wear shoes to school, she did have to go with combed hair! With her help I think I gradually became a reasonably good mother.

She is the ultimate mother. She mothered her children, she mothers her 3, soon to be 4, grandchildren, she mothers me, she mothered her co-workers and she mothered every student she ever came in contact with.

We have had a million conversations and I really don’t think that there are many topic we haven’t covered, aging parents, gay right, education reform, murdering husbands, forgiving husbands, car repairs, interracial dating, fashion, abortion, adoptions, drugs, wedding planning, good restaurants, weight, health – can you say everything! I really didn’t think that there was one thing I did not know about her. There was.

She took me out to eat for my birthday a couple of months ago and told me that there was something I didn’t know about her that she wanted to tell me. What she told me was a total surprise. She told me that when she was in college she got pregnant. As soon as she said it I wanted her to stop. Knowing everything I know about her I did not want to hear it. I could not hear how this wonderful, loving mother had been forced through circumstance to face an abortion.

But I just sat quietly as she continued. I was even more surprised by what came next. She did not have an abortion; she has another child, a daughter.

Abortion was not legal at that time. She went to a home for unwed mothers and the child was given up for adoption. This was not my friend’s choice, she felt she had no choice, and it was just done.

What now? My friend would like to know if this daughter is all right. She would like to give her a chance to meet her birth mother if that is what her daughter wants. She would like to give her family history. She wants to give her information and friendship, she does not want to intrude on anyone’s life. But she is looking for a starting place. I told her I would ask you guys. Bless her heart she can’t even manage to do email on her own so I said I would help her get started. She doesn’t have a great deal of information but we need some web sites where adoptive parents and child can be united. I would love to help her get started on this and I will keep you informed if anything comes of it.