Three years ago, I hid a pregnancy up until the time that I gave birth. I didn’t know what to do, so I abandoned the child. I already had an eight-year-old son, and it was a very difficult situation.

I couldn’t manage the expenses and I also didn’t want anyone to know that I had failed, but now I feel terrible. I just had another child with my current husband, and holding this baby in my arms causes me to remember, every minute of my life, the great sin that I committed when I abandoned the baby I had three years ago.

That baby was a girl. I left her in the crib at the hospital where she was born. No one noticed that I left. I abandoned her without looking back.

Dear Friend,

We are very sorry to hear about the misery that you are going through. The joy of your new child is being diminished by the longing for your previous daughter. As her birth mother, there will always be an empty place in your heart and in your life for the daughter that you left in the hospital.

However, our opinion of the situation is quite different than yours. We don’t agree that you committed a sin by leaving your daughter. In fact, we believe that you showed great courage in letting her grow inside you and then being able to leave her in the care of others who could provide for her.

Many women would have had an abortion in your situation. They would not have had the courage to carry the baby for nine months in order to give her life. Instead, their lack of courage would have led them to just destroy the evidence of the pregnancy, thus killing the new life inside them. We believe that you should comfort yourself knowing that the girl is alive today, and probably very happy and secure, because you had the courage to give her life.

Furthermore, we are convinced that your thoughts and decisions have been influenced by the antiquated stigma of adoption. Instead of seeing adoption as the loving and courageous option, you feel shame. It is likely that there are people in your circle of family and friends who have the erroneous viewpoint that putting a baby up for adoption is abandoning it. That may have been true in the past, but today nothing could be further from the truth. Thousands of childless families all over the world are praying for a child to adopt.

Placing a baby for adoption by a loving family is an answer to their prayer. We will never cease to be grateful for the woman who placed her son for adoption almost forty years ago, answering our prayer for a child. She has missed seeing him become the wonderful man that he is today, while we have been blessed to call him our son.

Of course, it would have been better if you had formally put the child up for adoption rather than just leaving, but you left her in a safe place where she was continually cared for. We congratulate you for that, and we believe that God will comfort your heart and take away your shame.

We wish you well,

Linda

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