“As soon as I learned that I was pregnant, I knew that I would choose adoption,” recalls Laura. Then twenty-seven years old, college-educated and employed, Laura felt she was not ready to be a parent. “I knew I didn't want to be a single mom. My mother raised my older sister by herself. My younger sister is a single mother. I had seen the struggle that was involved there and I didn't want to do it.”

The father of Laura's baby and then boyfriend of five years didn't readily accept the idea of adoption and suggested she have an abortion. “He felt that he wanted to be able to be present in his child's life- all the time or not at all. Like not even have the baby, not know about the baby, not ever wonder. He felt that adoption was right smack in the middle of those two things. And he was trying to avoid emotional pain.” After thinking about it for a couple of days, Laura felt she couldn't go through with an abortion. “To me, [adoption] was the best of all the possible solutions at the time.”

“I had a co-worker who had adopted a son through Spence-Chapin and recommended the agency to me. I really wanted a Catholic family. That was one of my major things that I was looking for. And, I think as far as personalities go, my son must be very, very much at home with his adoptive parents because his adoptive mom and I have very similar ways of doing things and looking at the world. And both of his fathers do as well. So, I don't think he's too out of sorts in terms of what would've been the biological, natural place for him to be anyway.”

“For the first six months I had a hard time with the adoption, but I made peace with it afterwards. For me, the only way I could have made peace with my decision was by being completely open about it. But it was talking through it that helped me heal.”

“Since we now live on opposite sides of the country, my son's adoptive mom always sends me his class pictures. At one point, I think when he was two, she sent me a clip of his hair because she said, 'I wanted you to see the real color of his hair as opposed to seeing it in pictures.' He colors pictures for me and stuff. I mean he knows about me. He even sent me an e-mail last summer: 'Hi, it's me. I'm here at work with my mom and just wanted to say 'Hi.'”