(no subject)
A little known fact about me is that i gave up a little boy when I was 20 years old.
When i got pregnant, i was living in Phoenix and had just broken up with my boyfriend. Anyway, i was living with Andrews father and his girlfriend, who was almost pregnant .... long story, i will leave it at that.
After a few months of living in a nightmare, i moved to Washington State with my high school sweetheart William, who was stationed at the Navy base in Everett. He got sent out on Wespac and i was left to fend for myself with my roommate Christy, who was Williams best friends wife. Talk about going from one nightmare to another. She was controlling and had more men in the 2 months i lived there, then I have fingers.
Anyway, when I couldnt take it anymore, i packed up my stuff and hopped a Greyhound to Utah to stay with my mom, where I got a job as a busser at the restaurant/hotel she works at.
Up until that point, I was sure that i wanted to keep andrew, despite not being ready, or near stable enough to take care of a child. After some poking and prodding from my family, mostly my mom, I decided that giving Andrew up would give him a better life than i could provide, the kind of life i wanted to have when I was a kid. Namely, parents that were married, a steady home, enough money to buy food, clothes, and toys ...
Well, my mom and I went to LDS Family Services, and spoke to a lady named Tiffany, that my aunt knew from when my cousin adopted a little girl. Tiffany was really sweet and helped me to know that my choice was the right one, but in a different way than my family did. Tiffany got some suggestions for the types of families that I wanted to give Andrew to, and set an appointment for a few days later to come and go through families. After a month of looking through profiles, pictures and reading letters written by the possible parents, I had it narrowed down to two families. I decided to go with a couple who had been married since 1996 and wasnt able to have children. Andrew was a computer tech, and Victoria was a homemaker. A week later my mom and I met them at the family services office, and talked for a couple hours. My mom and I asked questions, and they answered them just like I would have. There was one question that really got me... My mom asked them what they wanted to name the baby, and Victoria answered Toren Jesse, because she had always wanted a T.J. In return she asked what I wanted to name him, and I told her Andrew James, after my cousin Andrew who died, and my dad James who died when I was 19 ... When Andrew and Victoria found out the reasons for wanting the name Andrew James, they decided to keep the name i had given him.
so anyway, Andrew James was born at McKay-Dee Hospital on January 3, 2001 weighing 8 pounds 11 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long. It was a hard and long labor, made worse by the fact that i was so drugged up i wouldve admitted to being the shooter on the grassy knoll... rofl
anyway, the doctor used the vacuum and the forcepts and andrew was just too big. I had my mom on one side, my god-mother on the other, both pushing up my legs, and the nurse was pushing down on my stomach. I was so drugged i could barely push... reason i was so drugged was because I didnt want to feel anything and someone was already having a c-section. I didnt want to feel anything, or hear anything, so as soon as Andrew was out and started crying, i plugged my ears til they took him out of the room.
So i wasnt tempted to change my mind, I didnt get to see Andrew until after i signed the papers, on January 5th. I got to hold him for a few minutes, then passed him to Victoria.
Since then I have had several chances to send letters and pictures, but havent. I just never know what to say ... I sent him a letter explaining why i gave him up, and that I hope he understands, but i cant keep repeating that over and over.
I really hope that when he turns 21 he will come and find me. I would love to be able to talk to him about his life, and have closure that i made the right choice ....
This is Andrew, in 2003, at 2 years old.