Really, all the conflict stemmed back to the fact that I was trying to break the cycle. When I got pregnant, I was repeating something that had happened for previous generations in my family. My grandma was a young mom, and her life was chaos. And then my mom was a young mom, and her life was chaos. And then I became a young mom, but I stomped on the cycle.
When I chose adoption, I was going against all of their decisions. I was coming right out and saying, “I’m not going to do what you did. I want to do better.” I didn’t do it to declare war on them or judge them. But they could tell I was putting space between my life and theirs, and they didn’t like it.
It’s not easy to break the cycle.
Tyler:
What amazed me was the way my dad could look me in the eye and lecture me about “manning up” and “taking responsibility for your child.” Just take a minute to think about the memories I’ve shared about my dad, and let that soak in.
My decision to place my child for adoption wasn’t about laziness or cowardice. It wasn’t about turning my back on my responsibilities. It was about loving that child and doing the right thing. I wanted to parent that baby. Catelynn wanted to parent that baby. But no sane person could look at Catelynn’s and my situation, look at the wonderful adult couples who’d been approved for adoption, and say, “Oh, that baby is definitely better off in the trailer with the broke high school kids.” Give me a break.
The problem was that this was a major difference in values between me and Catelynn, and my dad and her mom. Remember, when Cate and I wrote out the pros and cons of parenting this baby, the one thing on the pro side was “living with biological parents.” For us, that one reason was obliterated by all the cons. But to my dad and Cate’s mom, it was the exact opposite. In their eyes, it didn’t matter how many cons piled up: “You don’t give away your blood.”
“You don’t give away your blood. You never give away your blood.” I heard that over and over from my dad. My dad, who’d never been around. My dad, who’d been in jail for most of his life. My dad, who chose crack cocaine over his family and did it over and over and over again.
“You don’t give away your blood,” he’d boom at me. “I don’t care what you have to do. I don’t care how worried you are about money. I’d go door to door begging for food if I had to. I’d sleep in my car before I’d give up my kid.”
“You’d subject your kid to that life?” I said. It was so hypocritical I couldn’t even believe it. “Just because you don’t agree with adoption? What about the kid? What part of that has anything to do with being a father and taking care of your child?”
“I don’t care,” he said. “You never give away your blood.”
When I couldn’t take it anymore, I called him out. I told him, “You did give up your kid. You gave me up when you chose drugs and crime and jail over me. If you think I’m taking parenting advice from a crackhead, you’re insane. You know what, dad? Whatever advice you live by, I’m pretty sure I should do the opposite.”
No, it’s not easy to break the cycle. If it was, the world would be very different. But the more these bad influences tried to talk us into doing what they would do, the more we believed in our decision. Their opposition made us stronger. It told us we were doing the right thing.
Bad Memories, Hard Lessons
Catelynn:
Did I want to be a mom? Yes. More than anything in the entire world, I wanted to be a wife and a mom. But my dream was to take care of my family. And that takes more than love. Love was never what was missing. I had endless love for the child inside of me, just like my mom had endless love for me. But love didn’t save me from the instability I hated so much growing up. If I parented my baby, I would shower her with love every single day. But how could I protect her from the things I’d seen?
I’d never experienced stability in my entire life. I’d moved more than ten times. I’d been attacked by crackheads. I’d been surrounded by drug deals and violence and hard times for as long as I could remember. And yes, there was love and happiness mixed up in all that, and parents who did the best they could. But all I had to do was think back over the last couple of years of my life to know I wanted better for my daughter.
Just look at what had happened with my mom’s crackhead boyfriend, the one who scammed his way back into the family after he attacked me. If our lives had been more stable and secure, we wouldn’t have gotten stuck moving to Detroit with him. But thanks to the way things were, my mom got sucked into a bad situation, and so did her kids.
Living in that neighborhood in Detroit was like being stuck in an episode of Cops. There were drug deals going on everywhere you looked. There were gunshots at night. Needless to say, there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to go to high school there. My mom didn’t want me going, either. Detroit public schools are not the place to be, and definitely not for me. I was tough, but I was still just a small-town white girl from the trailer park. I knew I wouldn’t last five minutes. The only kids in the neighborhood I made friends with ended up scaring the shit out of me. There was a house full of teenagers two doors down from us, and I started to hang out with the girls. But one day when I went over there, one of their older brothers was there with a bunch of his friends, smoking a blunt in the bedroom. Everything was fine at first, but then all of a sudden they turned on the TV and put on this porno video of five guys gangbanging a girl. Before I knew what was happening, they all jumped on me and started pretending they were doing it. I was completely scared out of my mind. They acted like it was a joke, but I got this vibe in my feet and my stomach that told me to get out of there as fast as I could and never come back.
That was when I said, “Screw this, I’m going back to Marine City.” I had a couple of friends there I knew I could stay with, so I packed my suitcase and told my mom I was leaving. She didn’t argue with me. Of course she didn’t want us there. And I didn’t want her there, either! It was devastating for both of us. I wanted her to leave Detroit, leave that guy, get her own place and be normal again. But I knew she’d gotten trapped. She didn’t have any money, she didn’t have a car, she didn’t have a job somewhere else. How was she going to leave? What was she going to do, couch-surf with me? She had nowhere to go, and she couldn’t just pick up my little brother and go be homeless.
Tyler:
Cate and I had been together for three years when this was all going down. When she left Detroit, she came to my place first. My mom always had an open-door policy when our friends needed a safe place to stay. She’s always taken care of my sister’s friends when their parents kicked them out or whatever. But she has rules, and for Cate, the rule was that Cate could stay as long as she was going to school. Unfortunately, the school wouldn’t let her enroll herself in the tenth grade without her mom there. Well, her mom was in Detroit without a car. So Cate didn’t get to go to school. To this day that makes me furious. What’s a kid in Cate’s situation supposed to do when things go crazy at home?
So Cate and I had to lie to my mom and pretend she was going to school every day. She’d get up with me, leave the house like she was going to class, and come back to the house when my mom had left for work. Eventually, my mom found out. That was when she said, “Tyler, I can’t do this. I have to call someone.” She called up Cate’s grandma in Florida, and Cate’s grandma was like, “Hell, no. I’m not having my granddaughter bouncing around from couch to couch.” So she called up Cate’s mom and had custody temporarily signed over so that she could bring Cate down to stay with her in Florida until things had stabilized.
It all happened fast. I woke up one day and went to school like normal, and when I got home she was gone. There was a note on the counter that said, “I found out I was leaving and it was too hard to say goodbye. I love you so much.” I was devastated. I bawled my eyes out for hours. She wrote to my mom, too, to thank her for everything she’d done, and when I got her on the phone we both cried. I wasn’t mad at her, but I was mad. Three years together, and we were t
orn apart because these adults didn’t have their shit together. First I was pissed at my mom, and then I was really mad at Cate’s mom. I was like, “God, why would you let your daughter go to Florida?” Cate was left with no place to go just because her mom was with some stupid asshole in Detroit.
Catelynn:
I was in Florida for eight months and it was an extremely hard time. My grandparents are amazing, and they took great care of me. But it was a drastic change, and it all happened because my home life was messed up and out of control. There was nothing I could do about it. I was very angry, and very depressed. Not having anywhere to go or a stable place to live was devastating. I remember at that time in my life, I smoked marijuana as often as I possibly could. It was the only way I could think of to deal with my feelings and anxiety. If I wasn’t high, I was so full of anger and helplessness I couldn’t stand it. As long as I could find five bucks to get a joint, I didn’t have to think about anything that was going on or what a nightmare my life had turned into.
Meanwhile, back in Detroit, my mom’s boyfriend kicked up his crack addiction. The final straw was when he started pissing off the neighborhood drug dealers. One day my mom, my brother and her boyfriend were upstairs when someone knocked on the door. He went down to answer, and when my mom glanced out the window, she saw five guys standing outside on the street and two more on the porch. It was one of those old houses with a refurbished attic for the upstairs bedrooms, and there was a grate in the floor where you could see down into the living room. So she looked down through the grate as her boyfriend answered the door and let in one of the men outside, a guy he knew.
Her boyfriend always kept a baseball bat behind the door, just in case. This guy who came in grabbed the bat and smacked Dave in the head. As my mom watched, this guy got her boyfriend on his knees and held a gun to his head, saying “Give me the money you owe me, or I’ll kill you right now.” My mom screamed out that she was calling the cops. And this guy just shook his head and told her boyfriend, “I don’t care about you, your woman, or your kids. I’ll kill you right now.”
Finally her boyfriend convinced the guy he’d get him his money, and the men left. That was it. My mom called my grandma and said, “I’m getting out of here.” She moved back to her mom’s house in Marine City. Their relationship wasn’t good, but finally there was just no choice. After that, my mom found out that her boyfriend owed those guys something like forty-thousand dollars. He’s still in Detroit now, living with two women and three kids.
When I finished the school year, my grandparents wanted me to stay in Florida and graduate there. They offered to get me a car if I got good grades, and everything. But I was young, and I just wanted to be home. I know that they knew it would be better for me to stay with them, but I could never understand why I wasn’t able to go home. I didn’t care that my mom was staying with her mom. I wanted my family, my friends, and Tyler. So I took off like a rocket as soon as I could.
My poor grandma. She tried to get me to go on birth control in Florida. I said, “No, thanks. Birth control would make me fat.” She told me, “Pregnancy makes you fat, too.” I laughed it off. And four or five months after I got back to Michigan, I was pregnant.
We Had to Do Different
Tyler:
Fast forward a few months, and here are my dad and Cate’s mom trying to talk us into parenting the baby. With all that upheaval fresh in our minds. With Cate’s mom just barely out of it and moved into a new trailer of her own. With my dad fresh out of prison. With the two of them drinking all night in the kitchen. Oh, and getting married.
And there we were, watching this whole thing unfold with a child growing inside of Catelynn. A child who didn’t ask for any of this. A child we already loved enough to want the very best for.
It was so hard to be sixteen, scared, half-blinded by emotions, and hearing constantly from our parents that we were making a huge mistake and ruining our lives. We wanted their guidance. We wanted their advice and their support. It was hard as hell to have them condemn our decision.
But it was even harder to imagine bringing an innocent child into all that chaos and telling ourselves we’d done the right thing. And that was why the harder they fought us, the more we stuck to our decision. That was even truer once we started the adoption process and got to know the amazing couple we chose to adopt our baby. Every possible sign in the universe told us we were doing the right thing by doing different.
Catelynn:
Of course, it’s easier to explain all this in retrospect. It really was chaos at the time. Sometimes we’d be lying in bed and we’d be like, how the hell did this happen to us? How are our parents married? How are we in this situation? We were in the middle of a tornado. We were just waiting for a piece of debris to fall on us.
It really wasn’t until later that I started to fully understand the value of my decision, and the meaning of breaking the cycle. My dad’s mom had him when she was sixteen. My dad had his son when he was sixteen. My mom’s mom had her at sixteen. My mom had me at nineteen. And then I had Carly at seventeen.
They’ve all struggled their whole lives, paycheck to paycheck, and I was the only one who chose a different option. One night after it was all said and done, my dad’s mom said to me, “Catelynn, I’m so proud of you for breaking the cycle.” That was the first time I realized, “Wow, I kind of did.”
Closing Thoughts
Adoption is not an easy decision, but sacrifice isn’t supposed to be easy. Doing the right thing is usually harder than the wrong thing. And for most parents, the idea that the “right thing” means placing your child with another family goes against every natural instinct there is. For a mother who’s dreamed of nurturing a child all her life, it’s almost unimaginable at first. Maternal instinct can be one of the strongest forces there is. It’s like that for almost every animal on the planet. Mother bears will kill to protect their cubs, but they don’t drop them off with other bear families when their habitat gets destroyed. There’s a real natural instinct separate from all logic and reason, and you can’t mute that instinct with a list of pros and cons.
So we understand why some of our family members struggled with our decision. We struggled with it, too. But that’s why at every step of the way, we had to remind ourselves to think of what was best for the baby. That child did not ask to be brought into this world. Children and babies are the most innocent, vulnerable, helpless creatures on the planet. They’re relying on you for everything. Their lives will be defined by the choices made by the adults around them.
So we made this choice. We chose a better life for our child. That was the greatest expression of love we had to give.
CHAPTER 6:
* * *
THE ADOPTION JOURNEY
Now that we’ve talked for so long about the dark side of our sacrifice, it’s time to let the bad memories rest for awhile. Let’s not forget that this is a story of hope. And for every shadow along the way, there were beacons of light that supported and guided us down the path we believed in. Each of us had one parent who was against our decision, but each of us had another parent who had our backs for the long haul. Once we started down the road to adoption, we got to know more people who offered us the advice and reassurance we needed to navigate this unexpected and completely unfamiliar journey.
Yes, we were making a sacrifice. And yes, it was difficult. But as we were able to see through our own grief and frustration, we also saw the beauty and love that unfolded as a result of our choice. Because we chose adoption, and thanks to the guidance of our adoption counselor, we were able to make a life plan for our child that provided her with all the stability and opportunity we could dream of. At the same time, we were able to help grant a wonderful couple’s biggest wish by giving them their first daughter.
We had already had a glimpse of adoption a year before when someone close to us had almost placed her child with an adoptive family. That was more of an education than most people in our position usually h
ad. But experiencing it ourselves was another thing completely. Every stage was more intense than the next: Meeting the adoption counselor, searching for the perfect adoptive parents, checking into the hospital, and signing over custody over our parents’ objections.
And in the middle of it all was a beautiful baby girl, completely innocent, surrounded by people who loved her enough to make sure she had the best chance she could have at an awesome life.
A Special Note on Positive Language
You may or may not have noticed that when we talk about adoption, we try to use positive language. Some of the most common expressions people use when they talk about adoption actually have some really negative connotations. Specifically, we ask that people take a minute to consider the meanings of the phrases “We gave our child up for adoption,” or “We put our child up for adoption.”
First of all, that phrase “give up” has a really negative feeling to it, doesn’t it? When you “give something up,” it sounds like you’re either quitting, or letting go of something you’ve decided you don’t need. It makes adoption sound like giving away a pair of shoes you don’t have room for. Even just the words “give up” sound like the opposite of hope. For all those reasons, “You gave your child up for adoption,” even though it’s common, is something adoption educators discourage.
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