In talking about this current chapter in my life, often, people will say, “How do you do it?” The answer is easy; I have no other choice. I have a full life, and life is for the living, there is no time for me to waste being miserable. So many people have those stories. So many of us have gone through or are going through SUCH. HARD. THINGS. Some people are private. For me, as a very open person, I find that when I talk about what I am going through or hear about what someone else is going through, from an authentic perspective, it allows me to know that person better. It allows our conversations to be deeper and more meaningful. I’ve tried to remember the quote I once heard, “Be kind to everyone, for they are going through a battle you know nothing about.”

This story from our first guest blogger is from my birth mother, Jeannie. It is her story of her hardest time. It is also my origin story, and I can’t think of a better first guest blogger. Thank you, Jeannie, for sharing your story.

My luck isn’t the kind that wins raffles or hits on a roulette wheel. I’m lucky in life, in the people I attract and the results of my decisions. This is my story of resilience and how incredibly lucky I am to have my personal tragedy become a happy ending for so many people.

I remember the day. I remember telling my boyfriend that we didn’t need to stop because we didn’t have a condom. I remember how absurdly good it felt. I remember afterwards just feeling wonderful. I had taken chances before and not gotten pregnant – I was sure I was fine.

A month later, my period was late and I wasn’t so sure anymore. There were lots of negative over-the-counter pregnancy tests but no period. Finally, there was a blood test and a phone call. My roommate was a phlebotomist working in a lab and she called me, ”Jeanne, you’re pregnant” and the bottom dropped out of my world.

Was I naive, arrogant, willfully blind to the consequences of my actions? Absolutely. Does my heart still ache for the 19 yr old me and the moment when reality crashed into my belief that “things” happened to other people? Yes.

Over the next few months, I realized that what I wanted most for my baby was the best opportunity for a good life. It was a struggle to come to terms with the knowledge that I wasn’t the one who could provide that.

Contacting Vista del Mar, the adoption agency, didn’t require a large amount of initiative on my part. I had moved back in with my parents and my dad was a social worker for a Catholic adoption agency in the same building as Vista. I met with Harvey, my social worker, and he told me he had the perfect parents for my baby: Eddie and Maggie, a wonderful, stable couple. Eddie was a lawyer and Maggie was a bookkeeper. They were amazing and perfect. I went home and cried when I told the baby in my belly all about them.

Diana Shaya Furie was born December 17, 1985. She was beautiful and perfect. I had to ask to hold her because the nurses knew she was going to be adopted. I remember holding her and feeling my heart break into a million pieces. She moved in my arms exactly as she had moved in my belly. I would know her anywhere. I was her mom for 2 days then I went home without her.

The pain of relinquishing my baby was beyond anything I could have anticipated or expected. Up to that point in my life, I still believed in a god. As I lay in my bed, physically healing from giving birth, emotionally broken from relinquishing my baby, I prayed to God to ease my pain. I knew I had done what was best for my daughter but the pain of separation was all encompassing. The sorrow dragged me into dark and horrible places. I cried and despaired. I lost my belief in God.

Then the power of my luck emerged. In my darkness, came a light. Eddie and Maggie had written me a letter. Her name is Amanda Halley. She is beautiful and perfect. Would I be open to possibly opening the adoption? They felt it would be best for Amanda to have me in her life. They told me they believed that Amanda didn’t have a limit on the number of people who loved her.

I met Amanda when she was around 6 months old. My darkness lightened. My every reason for my sacrifice was justified. Amanda had a mom and a dad. She had a dog and a house.

The story of my resilience had begun. It wasn’t through anything I did for myself but because of my great good luck in finding Eddie and Maggie.

I was able to come back from the depths of despair because of the kindness and compassion of others. I try to be that light now, to reach out my hand to people that come into my life, to help others with the resilience that was gifted to me.