Will Appleby :
Let me tell you a story.
My birth mother was in her early Twenties. She was dating a guy who was in prison at the time, and had two young kids to raise. One night she fooled around with her boyfriend’s friend and she got pregnant as a result. He disappeared, and her furious boyfriend ended their relationship.
My mom tried her best, but the pregnancy caught up to her and she couldn’t work as hard as she used to. She was fired from work, and evicted from her apartment for not paying rent. She went to live with her mother in Nevada, who counseled her into putting the unborn child (me) up for adoption. She contacted an adoption service and met my current parents, a young Christian couple unable to have children because of the effects of life-saving chemotherapy.
When the time came, my birth mom suddenly appeared in Bakersfield, California, and had me. My parents were contacted and drove three hours to the hospital. I was placed on hospital watch when they found cocaine in my several-minutes-old system, and had my parents not arrived I would have been turned over to CPS. The last they saw of my birth mother for almost ten years, she was getting into a taxi outside the hospital that my adoptive parents had paid for.
Flash forward almost nineteen years. I am halfway done with my second semester at a junior college, saving money to transfer to a four-year college. I have lived a relatively comfortable life. I have never known what it’s like to go hungry for lack of food, or to be homeless, or to go without electricity or hot water. I can play two instruments, the piano and trumpet, and I am fluent in Spanish and English. I am a Christian of 15 years, and very serious about my faith.
I was fortunate enough to be able to afford to attend a high school winter church retreat known as Hume Lake for all four years of high school, and I met my current girlfriend/love of my life there. I have made countless friendships and left a positive impact through all my high school years. Had I not been adopted, I would never have made that difference. I would have lived a tough life on the streets, maybe with a criminal record today. I may not have even survived my first couple of years alive.
All that to say, if you think you can’t take care of your child, put them up for adoption. There is no shame in admitting that you as a teenager are unable to take care of a child. I’m proud of you for even having the courage to try and raise your child. She will thank you one day.
(Will Appleby, adopted from birth, USA, has shared the above story of his life when he was asked by a teen mom that whether it would be wrong if she give up her 3-year-old daughter for adoption so the baby can have a better life.)
