Part 1 in Birth Mom's Perspective

Mia's birth mom and I text pretty frequently. She's become one of my closest friends. After talking to her about part 1 of Mia's story, I asked if she would be interested in writing part 1 in her perspective. She agreed and I am so excited to share with y'all what she wrote! Truly thankful for her and her willingness to share and allow us into her thoughts and experiences. I hope y'all know how truly special this is because not often do we hear things from birth parents perspective! We are so blessed to have her in our life! Here is what she wrote:

Right when I found out I was pregnant, I knew that adoption was the answer. I'm 19, single, and in no way ready to be a mom yet. So I started my search and found a couple of families that caught my eye. Choosing the couple that I wanted to raise my baby was probably one of the hardest things ever and I really lucked out when I found the Johnsons.

Throughout my pregnancy, Claire and I talked almost every day and I felt very comfortable with both Claire and Russell from the first time we FaceTimed. They always checked up on me and asked how I was feeling and gave me words of comfort (even when I scared them to death when I went to the hospital with an appendicitis at 24 weeks).

As the due date got closer, I got more anxious. So many emotions and thoughts would go through my head every single day. I was scared to go through birth and getting too attached to Mia. I was excited to give the Johnsons an eternal family. I was uncertain of what the future held for me. I was eager to not be pregnant anymore. But most of all I felt so much love for everybody that had been supporting me the whole way. I already loved Mia so much and I had shed many tears knowing I was going to miss looking down at my big stomach and feeling her kick. I was going to miss having her constantly with me.

Right when I hit 39 weeks and Mia was considered full term, I started doing everything I could to get her out! Spicy food, pineapple, lemon-drop cupcakes, walking, etc. but NOTHING was working. Every day got more and more torturous after my due date when she wasn't coming. But finally on May 5th at 8:00pm we were at the hospital getting ready for my induction.

Labor was an easy process for me, just super long and boring. I took a pill at 10:00pm that helped things move along and the nurses checked me every couple of hours to see how much I had progressed. I took my second pill at about 2am and started to feel my contractions once they started me on pitocin at about 4am, so I asked for an epidural and got it at about 7am. After that I laid in bed talking to my mom and sisters, looking through social media, and sleeping to pass time.

Around 8:00pm and 7cm dilated, the nurse put a peanut-shaped exercise ball under one of my legs and that must have really kicked things into gear because by 9:00 I was really feeling the contractions. After convincing the nurse that she shouldn't wait a half hour till she checked me again, she informed me that I was fully dilated and ready to go. So I called Claire and told them to head over because I'm good to go whenever they got to the hospital. My mom and nurse kept saying that pushing takes a long time, so I should get a head start and start pushing before the Johnsons got to the hospital, but I was stubborn and told them we needed to wait. Claire was updating on their ETA the whole hour, and I sent my dad to meet them at the elevators. Then I heard my mom in the hall tell Claire to get in the room because I was ready to go. That's when my life-shaping adventure began...