Tai's Story

This might seem odd but the first emotion I felt when I found out I was pregnant was excitement. How fun to be a mother! I called my best friend to tell her, but her concern and fear showed me the reality of the situation; oh my, I was going to be a mother! I was going to be in charge of someone else and not just myself for the next eighteen years. Then I became scared. I waited for a week or two to tell my parents. After comprising a very elaborate letter detailing all my plans and how I was going to make everything all right, I presented it to my father. Half way through the letter he looked up at me with such frustration and disappointment that I started to cry. Later that evening we gave my mother the letter. To this day, she doesn’t know what it said because she never read past the sentence, “I’m pregnant.” All my mom could think was, “My baby is having a baby.” I felt like I had ruined my parents’ lives, like I had failed them.

When my mom was able to talk to me again she posed the idea of adoption. I immediately shot it down telling her, “I could never hold my baby and then give it away to some stranger.” This just goes to show how little I knew about adoption at the time. Abortion had only entered my head for a fleeting moment before I realized that I could not face that bleak and grim reality. This only left me with the one option. I was going to raise my baby, with or without my parents’ help.

At my first doctor appointment my mom, in stealth, secured a stack of adoptive parent profiles. This was our first introduction to adoption. A few days later, feeling pressure from all sides, I conceded to the idea of adoption. I felt like I was abandoning my baby, like I had failed it too. But immediately after agreeing to look at the profiles I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders. I felt my life flooding back into me and I knew that something important and beautiful had been decided. It wasn’t too long until my family and I had chosen a family from the profiles, a family who seemed perfect. They had everything we wanted my baby to have and more. The only thing their life was missing was another child and I could give that to them. I had this incredible gift growing inside me and I knew that I had to share it.
The first time I met Tom and Lolai they drove the few hours to my house. Everything went even better than I had hoped and I started to see the light at the end of my tunnel. I started to realize that getting pregnant at sixteen hadn’t doomed me to a life of hard work. Instead, it had opened me up to this new and special relationship.

We spent the last five months of my pregnancy communicating over the phone and through email. They brought their daughter up to meet us only a few months before I was due. She was so bright; I knew that I wanted this life for my baby.

When I finally went into labor (five days overdue), my mother called Tom and Lolai immediately. They waited outside while I brought their new baby into the world. I had thought that I wouldn’t want anything to do with my son, but Shane Taylor (his middle name is my first) was so incredible that I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. I held him very close to me for the two days that we spent in the hospital together. My whole family was there and it was a magical few days.

When the time came for me to leave the hospital without Shane I was so scared. The hardest thing I have ever had to do was to hand him over to his parents forever. But I always knew it was right. I always knew that I had given birth to Shane so that he could be the light in Tom and Lolai’s lives.

I have now not only graduated from high school but also from college. I work full time and am getting married soon. I know that everything I love about my life would be lost if I had chosen to raise Shane; everything would have been that much harder to achieve, that much more out of reach. I see Shane about once a year and every time it only further eases my pain. He runs with so much freedom and laughs with so much joy. With every smile I know that his life is filled with the happiness that comes from a child who has every opportunity. I would never have been able to give that to him without the miracle of open adoption.