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Ack.

Children need love and care and if it proves impossible for a biological parent to provide one or the other then it is clear that others can be capable of doing so. My heart goes out to Cerin's friend who is trapped by age and isolation from emotional and practical support from the father and her parents. Who is to say that she couldn't meet someone within a year or so who could give her the independence to bring up her child? There are no answers that are guaranteed to be right in cases as these but it does make one wish that young people had easy access to good contraception.
The depth of grief and misery that is possible in the lives of some children doesn't bear thinking about.

Lidless, was your 'ack' in reply to anything in particular? Or just an expression of your inability to express yourself on this topic?

Thanks for your heartfelt comments, Tosh.

I have an update on the situation.

A healthy baby boy was born.

I was somewhat mistaken in stating the nature of the father's involvement. He attended the adoption counseling sessions along with the mother, and wants very much to be involved in the child's life, though he is still planning on going to school in the fall. So there is more emotional support there than I thought.

His parents (the paternal grandparents) offered their home as a place for the mother and baby to say, if she decided to keep him (it would have been a crowded situation). The mother did decide to keep the baby, and then another family from her church, with a larger home and several unoccupied bedrooms, offered their home as a place for her to reside with the baby, and that is where they are currently staying.

So happily she is receiving support, though not from the people whose support she would probably most like to have.

Thanks for the update, Cerin.

It is truly warming that all those people have stepped forth to help and to ease the decision.

This is not about adoption per se but about people being able to take the positive, productive view of things:

When my daughter and her fiancee found out they were pregant, it was a really difficult time for everyone in the family. Both kids were still in school, and my daughter's education was languishing at that point as she waffled between different colleges and careers.

There were six parents involved - me and my ex-husband, and the mother and step-father and father and step-mother of my daughter's fiancee. We had a big family meeting, all of us wondering what we would end up being called upon to do, and I was thrilled ... it still gives me goosebumps to think about it ... that all six of us were completely committed to the success of the whole family. The baby to be belonged to our children and it was up to them to decide what to do. No pressure to marry until they both finished school, and everyone agreed that they both needed their degree. The kids wanted to become a family as planned, just earlier than planned, and we all shared the small financial burden this entailed.

The baby was born (the best baby ever, of course), the kids graduated, got married, found really good jobs, and now they have a house and a second baby on the way (any day now, actually). When I think of all the things that could have gone wrong ... really, just one resentful parent could have turned heaven into hell for years afterwards ... that we got the best of all possible outcomes simply amazes me. It was the inverse of Murphy's Law.

So that does happen, too.

Jn

What a wonderful story!! :):)

Cerin, that´s good news!

Inyusa, I loved to read this story. It sounds like a fairy tale, which came true. And now your family is looking forward to the second baby!

When young people become pregnant, it is all a question of support by the family. I am working with a social service (I am a midwife, some of you know that already) and I often take care of teenage mothers. They are so different! There are some who can´t really take up with the situation and the support from the family is half-hearted, if not less. In these cases you can foresee that the new babies will be all the same when they grow up. Some babies are mere "accidents" within a loving family setting, but some of the girls want to have a baby to have anything to love and to get love from and when the baby is there, they are overtaxed in many regards. I pity them and I hate the social workers´ and my helplessness. We can try to ease the start, but usually the young girls don´t even realize that they need more help than only financial support.

Luckily there are other examples and they carry on with their lives, do their graduations and manage to found well working families.

Lhaewin, how wonderful, that you are a midwife!

When I gave birth to our son, our clinic was quite progressive and employed a nurse-midwife. My husband just couldn't cope with the idea of a home birth, but this was a good compromise for us, and we had a very good experience. Our nurse-midwife helped me through a 31-hour labor, and who knows if they would have let me labor so long if she hadn't been there as my advocate.

Quote:

I pity them and I hate the social workers´ and my helplessness. We can try to ease the start, but usually the young girls don´t even realize that they need more help than only financial support.

It must be so hard to have to look on, knowing these young people are facing such difficult times ahead.

Cerin,

I'm sorry I missed this earlier and thanks for the update.

My wife has 2 adopted daughters and I have been part of their lives for 24 years. There are other adoptions within the family. The important issue should be what arrangement is best for the child. The ability of the potential custodians to provide for the child in all of the ways a child needs must be considered. It's best when everyone can work together as in Jnyusa's situation.