The Heart of a Mother

by Julie Clark

Exiled until my body no longer betrayed my shame. Forbidden from knowing any of the terms surrounding the adoption. It’s for your own good, and it’s what’s best for the baby.

option. Choosing adoption as the only alternate happy ending to abortion is a fallacy, because giving up a child is a trauma that happens not only to you but to your child as well.

we could build a life together that was bright and meaningful without children.

There were women like me everywhere. The silent ones who’d tried and tried and tried and then quietly gave up. Accepted that hole in their hearts and tried to paper over it with other things.

All my life, I’d made it a point to respect the boundaries of others. But now I could see how easy it was to move that line. And once you’d pushed a boundary, how easy it was to push it a little further. And a little further after that. How simple it was to ignore the word no, especially when it was never actually said.

“When a mother gives up a child, it fundamentally changes her, on a cellular level,”

“I wasn’t the same person I’d been before I was pregnant.”

“Over the years it’s a yearning—a physical need that buzzes beneath your skin, a constant reminder that something important is missing.”

And when you make that deepest desire part of your public persona and share it with the world, it shouldn’t surprise you when someone comes along and tries to give it to you.

Some people might call this an obsession. But perhaps, in some ways, that’s what unconditional love really is.