I was recently writing a piece for a social media platform called "Talk About Adoption" and they asked me such a simple question but one that took me a while to answer. I was given up for adoption at birth, by my birth mother whom was a college student at a local university, pursuing a nursing degree, when she unexpectedly found out she was pregnant at the age of 21. Although everything around her was telling her that "she knew what she had to do", she still pursued me. Maybe not in the way of raising me, but she still chose life for me. She knew it would be anything but easy, but she still believed that I was worth all the difficult times.

My parents adopted me through a closed adoption (no contact with birth mother), and not up until about a year ago, through my own "investigation", was I able to find out anything about my birth mother. Nonetheless, from an early age, I was still able to acknowledge that although she chose not to raise me, she still chose life.

After I sent my story to this site, they asked me an additional question.

"What would you say to a mother facing an unplanned pregnancy?"

"Wow, such a loaded question," I thought to myself, but one that I wanted to explore, not only for the piece I was writing, but for myself.

To all the mother's facing an unplanned pregnancy, this is for you:

Firstly, I would like to tell you how strong and powerful you are. I want to tell you to be brave, even though you feel weak. I want you to walk forward, and not backwards, from this point on. I want you to believe me when I tell you that your pregnancy is not a mistake, that the baby inside of you is not a mistake, and that YOU are not a mistake.

Many people would label me as a mistake, but I think very differently. Many people would label their unborn child as a mistake, but I know if they could talk, they would tell you differently too. I would never dare tell myself or believe for one second that I was not meant to be here, because I know that I was. I am just like that baby inside of you, having grown up, and realizing how lucky I am to have had such a brave birth mother, who decided to let me live. I'm here, writing this story, to hopefully become a voice for the baby inside of you; to tell you that they want to live so badly, and that they deserve to.

I want to encourage you to choose life, choose adoption, or whatever you want to do, but to just choose life. I have a purpose, I promise you that, and so does your child. Hopefully someday, they will get to express that to you.

Sincerely,

A girl thankful that she didn't become just another statistic