Lost My Virginity to My Stepbrother and Got Pregnant

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My name is Laura. I have a story about kind of my whole life, but really when it comes down to it, it is the story of me losing my virginity to my stepbrother who was much older than me, and ending up pregnant. And how my decisions from that situation kind of shaped my life for many years to come and how I really internalized and allowed myself guilt for a really, really long time.

“And I think I'm at the point where I am at a much better place. I am not healed,”

but I'm at terms in that piece with everything that happened and is very much something that happened and is behind me. Yeah. So when it comes down to it, I did a lot of things that I regret, but in the end it brought me to where I am now. And I think, too, you know, with the topic like this, I feel like it goes one of two ways, like you either don't talk about it at all, and I'm sure there are some people that completely disassociate from it, or you hold it in,

you have that guilt, you know, because it's something that why would you want to talk about it, you know? Yeah. So the fact that you're able to speak out about it, and I guess, you know, you'll get into it obviously for there's listening, but the fact that you're able to openly talk about something traumatic that happened to you and how, and it's so true, you know, when things happen to us, they do shape our lives. And while they don't define us, they might

“like set the tone for a big chunk, you know? So I think it's so amazing that you're”

willing and able now, you know, just speak out about that. And if there's anybody, because I always say,

there's so many people that can relate to things, different portions of things, and I think it's really, really important. So if you give yourself a lot of credit for that, even though you're not, no one, I don't think everyone's ever completely healed because things are always happening in our life. That's part of life. But to get to a place that you're at is it's a pretty big step in a healing journey. And I don't talk about this, right? So I recently shared the story with my therapist

just to be able to say it again to make sure that I still remembered it and that I wasn't going to, you know, just forget big parts of it or totally break down in the middle of it or anything. But before I told her about it, it had been years since the last time I spoke about it. And not a lot of people in my family know, very few people outside of my family know, pretty much it's the people who were around me during the time that had happened.

And then also, like, my husband and one or two other people. So did you decide after just seeing the shell? Yeah, I love that. That's when I tell people all the time, like, that is another, there's so many full circle things about it. But it's things like that where it's like people that

never have told their story or thought I never would, they, the people that come on here,

they give so many people courage and confidence to own their story and not let it own them. And that's like, I feel like you are an incredible example. That's amazing. Yeah, I mean, I listen to, I found it on TikTok. Okay. And that's kind of where I found a couple snippets. And then I was like, oh, there's a podcast. I listen to the podcast. So I've listened to a lot of like most of the episodes,

“honestly, in the podcast. And I was just listening to one on the way home from work one day. And I was like,”

I think I should, yeah, I think I should try to share my story here. That's amazing. That makes, literally makes me tear it. I love that. That isn't credible. It makes me so happy. Okay. Keep going. Yeah. So I'm going to start kind of in my childhood and kind of work up to like how this happened in the first place. So I am the youngest of five children and my three sisters are a lot older, or half sisters, a lot older than me. And then my brother and I are very close to each,

only spoke to my mom and my brother. And if my dad, if I had to speak to my dad, I might speak to him.

But I was like always very shy around him too. So really it was just my mom and my brother. And

my sisters did not live with us in my memory. I don't remember them ever living with us. I know when I was born, like they were around. But one thing growing up that I always remembered and I always felt pressure on was the fact that my sisters and my mom were all teen moms.

“So I love, I love my sisters to that. I think that they are the strongest women in my mother,”

the strongest woman I've ever met. But I always felt like you can't end up that way. You can't be the person who also gets pregnant when you're a teenager and not finish school or go an alternate path. And then have to finish school later or try extra heart. Like I feel like my parents did everything to set my brother up and the two of us up for success for us to have a privileged life in order to avoid that. So my job growing up was to do well in school, get into a good college,

make a good career and be the perfect kid. And I feel like a lot of that is internalized. It's

not necessarily my mom wasn't bringing down my neck, making sure that I never got teen pregnant.

“And it was just something that I heard a lot and I knew how difficult it was for them. So I”

didn't want to be like that. I was going to be the perfect kid and do everything right. I also, with my friends growing up, I had a group of really close friends or four girls and four boys that throughout like grade school middle school. We were all very close to each other and we were also close during high school as well. And I was never like the pretty one or the the fun one or the social one. I just felt like I would I weighed more than them. I've always weighed

more than everybody else in my whole life. Even looking back I did not weigh that much. I was very

much in average size. But I always felt bigger. I had really bad acne and I always felt like I was just

not somebody that was popular. Not somebody who was like good with boys or anything like that. So throughout high school and even into college I was never really romantically pursued by anybody. Or even if it happened it was something where like I didn't like them back or I didn't know that they liked me or anything like that. So I never really had relationships in high school and college everybody was more focused on studies. So I went to a college that was very

notorious for people not dating and everybody like we're all nervous we're headstounder and everything. So it just wasn't a thing that happened that often. And so even in the transition from high school to college I never really felt desired. I always wanted people but I never you know I was never like back I never had pressure back or anything like that or if I did it's just went right over my head. So I met my step-brother Matt when I was late in college like six weeks away

from graduation. So I mean at this point I had done everything right in my life. I went to my drink college. I was gonna graduate in six weeks. I didn't have a job yet but I'm like everything's gonna be great. Like I did everything I was supposed to do. And then it was actually at my dad's wedding to Matt's mom. So my parents had gotten divorced a couple of years earlier that was a

“whole thing but it's not really relevant except for the fact that they got divorced and that's how it is.”

So it was like April. I go to my dad's house for the weekend because they're getting married. It's you know it's gonna be a this beautiful thing and another church and then I get to meet her family for the first time. And so her two sons were there and one of them he was married he had a kid. Kid was adorable and the other one is Matt who I was 21 and he was 37 and right away we had dinner like all the family had dinner at my dad's house and it was just like some kind of like attraction

kind of some kind of spark like I remember somebody gave it toast or like said a prayer or something before we all had dinner and then like he and I like locked eyes and he was just like smoking about

and so I was like oh I think he likes me and this is kind of a big deal because one I think he's hot

“and to he's older than he and he's cool and he's like successful and he actually likes me”

the 21 year old like yeah I've never I've been in like very minor relationships and kind of

dated around at this point but I've never been in a serious relationship I've never had what I consider a boyfriend up until this point so I'm like wow this is like never happened and this was the first time you met him first time I met him so I didn't know anything about him except for him just being my new stepmom's son and so very first time that we met and then the next day is when our parents got married and then at the reception he kissed me

and I was like oh this is happening and I was remember I was texting my friends back at school and I was like oh my god I met this guy and he kissed me and this is so cool and they're like okay just be careful all this stuff and I was not careful and I was not thinking to be careful I was just very much thinking this guy likes me this is great I'm super happy now quick question were you did you have any thoughts at this time of being nervous of like

well he's my stepbrother like no one can find out or were you kind of just like in this

“trans of like like he's at like he likes me and I think he's hot I never thought anything about him”

being my stepbrother okay it was something where yes yes he is or technically it is but and it's hard to because you just met he's just you had had like this brother sister relationship like leading up to it and he was so much older than me right I didn't I didn't think of anything yeah I was like oh yeah he's just so the custody pull you aside like was it private no it was so not private it was like on the dance floor at the wedding reception did anyone see yeah

I remember my aunt so my dad's sister was like whoa stay away from him yeah she was like oh let's go in on there and I'm like I don't know you tell me I don't know what's going on I know is that this is okay so wasn't like secret of it all no not not really okay hi guys it's me Davora I am so excited to finally share this with you all I've officially launched a new subscription channel called we're all in scene plus we're inside you will get access to

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okay totally in public yeah and of everybody like everybody was in the room yeah so who knows who

“we actually saw anything and it's hard to you know like I feel like there is a very real thing about”

not choosing who we have an attraction to not choosing who that spark comes with you know what I mean

so it's like it's some people have never felt that in their lives and sucks for you but like

that is a real thing and sometimes two people just connect without word that and it like it just it happens you know maybe not in the best of circumstances sometimes but it does yeah so I was staying that evening at my uncle's house okay and Matt was staying back at my dad's house and he invited me to go sightseeing with them so this is in Chicago Matt and his brother and like that whole group had never really been to Chicago before hadn't seen anything so he invited me to go out with them

“the next day and I said okay but all my stuff is still at my uncle's house my uncle actually went”

back to his house got my suitcase brought it over so that I could go back to my dad's house has been the night there so my dad and my new step mom they went to a hotel for a couple of days to have like their own private time and then I was back at the house with Matt and with my other step brother and like his family so I was going to sleep on the couch or Matt one of us was going to sleep on the couch and then that didn't happen we ended up like as soon as everybody else like went to bed and

laughed like we started making out and then we went to bed and then we had sex with each other and then

and he was your first he was my first I didn't tell him that I was like terrible right that he

would know yeah and that like this because at this point like I learned a little bit more about him apparently he had been married before I was like oh crap he's been married before he's like knows what he's doing yeah I know idea what I'm doing but I mean it was it was fine it was like my first time and it was good and I enjoyed it and everything was great and then the next day for some reason my step mom came with us but not my dad I don't know where my dad was but it was so my two

step brothers my step mom and I and Matt is like very openly like arm around me kissing me right in front of the step mom so like not hiding it at all and at one point he even asked like he even asked his mom he was like are you okay with this it's this okay it's just like whatever I don't care okay but it was also super creepy like this guy's kind of a creepy he totally was excited about calling me his little sister and referring to me that way and be like oh you're my little sister oh

I'm gonna protect you little sister but not really like he was yeah very drawn to that right like it wasn't like it was just okay we really like each other it's a spark it was kind of like that but then also this kind of like fetish and the fetish taboo kind of like right I mean for some people that yeah yeah so he was very and that started like right away that started right away okay it was very into it and then while we're out like doing some tours and like seeing some stuff in Chicago

I find out like kind of passively that he has a girlfriend and that this is like a weekend fling thing and I'm like did I hear that right yeah that he has a girlfriend and I'm like

petrified at this point I don't know what to say I've never been in this situation before I don't

know what to do and I was like I'm just gonna ignore that for now I'm just gonna have a good day I'm going back to school tomorrow it's you know everything will be fine we're fine and then we'll just see where this goes from here because like he lived back so my family growing up lived in Florida and then I was in school in Chicago so like I grew up in Florida moved to Chicago my dad moved to Chicago after the divorce so he lived in Florida so he wasn't close I know that this

“wasn't going to be like long term well long term serious thing I remember telling him that I was”

going to miss him and he was like oh that's sweet great he was not not into it very dismissive very

do all the sightseeing we go back to our dad's house and we do sleep together again

“and then the next day I'm leaving to go back to school now was your dad aware of this I don't know”

and even to this day I don't know my assumption is that my stepmom told him at some point okay because she was very aware but I also knowing her would not be surprised if she didn't say anything she had a tendency to be a bit of a secretive person or if you're a fan of true crime or or creepy encounters you've got to listen to disturbed true horror stories I bet down on his hand and he pulled back but he puts the knife a little harder against my sweatshirt

a sacred closer to the sterile I began to hear the breathing and growling of what could only come from a monster new episodes are dropping every week that you won't want to miss find disturbed true horror stories on apple podcasts apple subscription Spotify patreon and wherever you enjoy your podcasts mama we feel the grossly ban hmm sussat and so creamy hey they can't even pat that creamy sign Nutella what a fun mama

sure papa believed Nutella is Nutella keep things from my dad spoiler alert they did not

stay married first along they were only married for a couple of years before they split up

but I don't think my dad ever knew okay I recently told my brother who is there he was present for this whole thing he wasn't at the house but he was around and he seems a little bit protective at at first when we were still at the wedding he seemed a little protective of me and everything and just being near near mat but I recently told him like just a couple of months ago I told him and he was like yeah I had no idea wow okay so yeah no idea but I said goodbye to mat I went back

to school he went back to Florida and he had told me he travels a lot for work and he would love to like fly me out to where he's traveling and like have weekends with me or things like that and so in my mind I'm like oh I guess that's fine you know I'm not seeing anybody else I'm young I don't

“really care so and I like him yeah so I think that's fine and then a couple of days later I don't”

really care from him this is 2017 so we can text each other but people aren't really texting yet

I called him once but I got like his machine and he never called me back kind of thing but like

he emailed me a couple of times during this like interim period and then two or three days before my birthday so it's two weeks later so it's almost my birthday right before my birthday he sends me an email and he says this isn't gonna work out see a kind of thing and I'm like well that's great that kind of sucks but you know I kind of like what was I thinking like I didn't really expect this to go on and I knew that he was with somebody and I was just like that's that's fine whatever but at the

same time I'm thinking I think I might be pregnant like just have this like inkling in my brain

“I think that I think I might be pregnant and so I'm in college so I go to first I go to the”

like drugstore and just get a pregnancy test and I take it and I think I see a line and then I was in a sorority house at this time so I go to one of my sisters and I'm like what do you what do you think what do you think you see here and she's like I don't think so I think it's negative and I'm like I don't know so I go to the college just like health center and have them giving me a pregnancy test and they're like yes it's positive oh okay well he just broke up with the

yesterday yeah so this is in great so I'm assuming you guys did not use protection and he just did this thing he just did a thing and that's just crazy like you know that he just wouldn't he didn't

think about it yeah like he didn't bring it up I never brought it up he never asked like oh are you

on birth control no nothing no conversation whatsoever and even so afterwards I told a couple of my friends I was like oh we slept together and it was a whole like I was so excited about it because I like lost my virginity and it was so cool and then this guy was so cool and they were like did you use protection I was like no like you should get a morning nap to pillow it's like yeah

after pillow at a pharmacy but you have to like go to the pharmacy and ask for it so I went to the

“pharmacy I asked for it and they didn't have any wow okay and I was like okay bye and then I just”

never did anything so yeah it was it was crazy and so that's kind of how that very obviously happens

if we did nothing I didn't take a morning after pillow very obviously like yeah you're gonna get pregnant if you're at the right time yeah so I did and I had no idea what to do so at this point it's mid-May like early mid-May and I'm graduating in mid-June and I don't have a job I don't even have really a place to live at this point because I could live with my dad but I don't really get along very well with him and my stepmom and they just got married so I don't really want to

move in with them and they don't really have room for me either I my mom who I'm very close to

she and I were very apart at this time because she was in a relationship where I didn't really like

the other person that much and they were gonna move to Arkansas and I didn't want to move to Arkansas I knew nothing there I had no connections there whatsoever so I didn't want to move back in with her because I didn't want to go to Arkansas and especially when she was with somebody who I didn't really like and we didn't get along so at this point I don't really have a place to live and don't have a job and now I'm pregnant and I'm freaking out and again I'm starting to think of

all of the things in my life that I was supposed to be the best at or I was supposed to be

good for and one of them was not getting pregnant but then I did and I felt so ashamed to

myself and I had no idea how I was gonna tell my mom and to support her and tell her hey I'm pregnant just like everybody else like I'm like sorry I know you want me to turn out different and I know I tried to do everything to turn out different but I ended up in the same place as everybody else now when you found out did you tell him right away or did you I did okay and what was his reaction so I hadn't replied yet to his breakup email so I replied and was like hey can

call me we need to talk and I told him on the phone and he's like well I guess I have to break up with my girlfriend that's like if you want I'm not saying we have to be together and I don't think he was saying that we should be together in any way but he was like well I cheated on her

“and how your pregnancy I'm definitely gonna break up with her but he said I think I think you should”

get rid of it I don't think you should have this baby and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do and then he said that and I was like well I kind of guess that I should do that but the same time I was like well I kind of want to keep it but then like how am I going to tell my family and I feel like too it's so hard because you were so naive and then roundleaf things you know like it was so much at once and you had no understanding experience under your belt with it and I'm top of it

you guys aren't together he's telling you to get rid of it what else what like you know what I mean just like it wouldn't it's hard you know it's like in that moment I feel like anyone would just be like all right let me just not then you know right and so I didn't have any sort of like moral dilemma about abortion I grew up Catholic my family was very Catholic I went to Catholic school my whole life and obviously they are very pro-life and that is very much how they they feel but like for me

it just didn't I didn't really have a side yeah one way or another there's more so like what's best for me yeah right so I didn't necessarily have a moral dilemma about it it was more that I just didn't know if I wanted to keep it or not and so I asked him I was like if I do decide to keep this baby are you going to help me financially like what what is your role going to be and he very much hedge the question and he was very adamant like no you should get rid of it and he said

“I've been in this situation before I think you should get rid of it okay so this isn't his first time”

doing something like this and he has a very strong opinion about it I was like fine well I'm a

plant already planned booked and everything to go see friends okay so I flew down to Florida

and then he lived in the same area so I was staying with her friend he came over and gave me a check essentially to pay for the abortion was he flirty at all he was oh my gosh I'm so incensed about this because men men so he I'm at my friend's house it's just me and her there and she's still sleeping is kind of early in the morning so she's in her bedroom still sleeping and I'm out in

“the living room watching TV and he comes up like the walkway to the house and I remember looking at him”

be like why am I attracted to this man and I just felt nothing for him whatsoever he comes in

I'm thinking he's just gonna like give him money and leave no he comes in he sits down I remember

there's a music video playing on the TV and it's like very flirty and very sexual and and he's just kind of like giving me the eyebrows and like are you serious right now you're here to give me money for an abortion not to hook up again and obviously he's a man so he's like we're not gonna get more pregnant like no and we definitely did not do anything because I was I was done with it at this point I was like give me the money and get the hell out yeah

and I remember after he laughed my friend came out of her room and I was like do you believe

this man just tried to have sex with me right now yeah oh my god how piece of work yeah

so I went back to school and it was a couple of days before graduation at this point and I had an appointment so it was like the week of graduation so I'm gonna graduate I'm like Friday or Saturday and it's like Thursday and I go to my appointment and to save money I wanted to be awake during the procedure because it was like $200 more if they like knock you out and it was a horrifying procedure not in the sense that like are you comfortable talking about it yeah

okay not in the sense like it was like you know violent or like anything like that or that I

“had a big fear of it it was just I remember during the procedure I felt like I was going to die”

like something was going on I don't know if I was having a panic attack which very very much could have been this case or maybe I just wasn't breathing properly but I felt like I am dying right now like it wasn't painful no okay there was no pain whatsoever like I could feel like I could hear it and I could kind of feel like more going around but like I couldn't there was no pain whatsoever and then I just I felt like my soul was like leaving like an out of bodies yeah and there was

somebody there holding my hand because that was there alone right like most of my friends weren't talking to campus anymore because it was graduation week and then my friends who were there in campus were like their families were there for graduation so nobody was going to come with me at this point so I went by myself and there was just a woman there who was just a nurse or an aide or something like that and she her whole job was just to hold my hand and she was talking to me and looking

me in my eyes be like you're fine come back you're good like just kind of keeping me grounded

“but I remember thinking that like I'm going to die yeah but it didn't last very long I got my”

what's about me I was able to calm down enough and everything went medically fine how long is that procedure as a quick or it was pretty quick I was just a couple minutes wow yeah very quick it was kind of like like numb me up they go in there they do something you're doing crazy it is crazy wow okay yeah and did you feel I know that you felt during you know like you were going to die did you feel any sadness so not at that moment and then I sat up and I had like when you know

when you had your period and like you feel like coming out you feel your blood coming out I sat up and I felt I felt myself having what you know what essentially is a period and I remember being like this was the wrong decision and it was too late obviously it was done it was over but I remember thinking like I sat up and I was like why did I do that that was not the right thing to do why did I do that and I was very like I immediately regretted it like instantaneously regretted it

they gave me they gave me some medications and stuff to take so that you don't get an infection but for the most part it's just like kind of having a bad period and so I just

“remember going back to the house I was living in just for a couple more days and then just feeling”

this overwhelming link regret like the whole train ride home getting like walking back to my house going back in the house and then being alone and there's nobody there because it's you know graduation weeks so there's really not a lot of people there and just doing what the hell did I just do why did why did I make that decision and that's kind of like the whole start of like the after I keep thinking of it as after like everything my life before and after

and at this point I still don't have a job but I have a place to live my sister asked me to move in with her she just called me up kind of randomly and it's just like hey do you have a job why don't you come live with me and you can try to find a job while you're here so I had a place to live I went by her I did not tell her I didn't tell anybody so like even that weekend like all my family was there for my graduation there was like beautiful time like pictures

and all this stuff and I'm just thinking like the whole time like I just had an abortion and I'm horrible and I can't believe I just did that and went to go live with my sister and I was

“extremely depressed for those first couple of months afterwards I remember I went to go see a movie”

with my nephew and his friend and for whatever reason I had to get up and pee a couple of times just drink too much water or whatever and at one point I was like okay I'm gonna go get up and pee and one of them is like are you pregnant like why do you keep peeing and I'm just like shock like total shock like all the bledger and drains from my face that I'm just like I cannot believe you just ask me that and I'm like I'd run away and like go pry about it because I just couldn't believe it like

those kind of things just like trigger you and you don't expect them and then I was extremely triggered from that and I had not a serious pay the tech but I'm mild panic attack from from

that did Matt ever ask you how it went I never spoke to him again after he gave me the money

it's crazy I mean that's kind of a lie he did send me a Facebook message many years later like I would say like three or four years later which is like hey how are you haven't heard from

“you awhile just want to see how you're doing want to see if you want to reconnect and I said”

him this long message back that was like I have been severely traumatized by you and I never want to see you again did you respond no I think I blocked him before he cut I just sent it and I was like don't ever contact me again and he never did and I haven't spoken to him since really he doesn't even grasp or understand what he calls he has no idea now so I'm having a lot of regret about this and I'm thinking with my lifelong Catholic education I'm like God is going to punish me for doing this

so I am going to get punished in some way like God always forgive so he's going to forgive me but

just like any parents are going to forgive you but they're still going to punish you and God is going to punish me and I'm never going to be able to have kids ever I'm never going to have my own kid I'm never going to get pregnant again that's like this is going to be my punishment for the rest of my life because I did this so that's just something I thought that's something that I internalized on myself and put on myself for from that point on while I'm living with my sister

I get a job I meet my husband so it's been about six months since graduation when my husband and I

start dating and he's just amazing we were still it's been 15 years we've been married

graduations yeah like he's amazing then I love him to that like he is wonderful I did tell him kind of early in the relationship about Matt and about the whole situation and he was like I'm so sorry you went through that and I was like what happens if like you get me pregnant and he's like well I'm married you like oh my gosh that's amazing because I want to marry you anyway yeah so we get married I'm really like two and a half years after we start dating and so like

halfway through that we getting engaged then we get married and we're married for a year or two

with him and it just doesn't happen and he goes to see a fertility specialist I go as well they dream that there's nothing wrong with me but there's something wrong with like his like sperm count mobility whatever I don't really know but I know that it's just unlikely to happen naturally so they put me on like these meds that make me like extra fertile they put him on some kind of regimen so that he can be extra fertile and they're like go try it for a while and we try for a while

“and then I think that put a big strain on our marriage because we were trying and trying and”

nothing and trying and nothing so ultimately we were like we can't do this naturally so we have

a couple of options in front of us we could go IVF or we could go adoption and at this point were you blaming yourself yes okay the whole time I'm blaming myself like this is because what I this is this is my fault and I am not as severely depressed as I was like for those first couple of months afterwards but anything abortion-related triggered me very very badly so a commercial on TV a plot point in a show was very common there would be like protest random

protests somewhere in town and we would drive by them I remember I was on the phone with my husband on the way home from work I was like just on my way home talking to him and a truck goes by with like an anti abortion sign on the truck and I just break down into tears I have to pull over I am completely annihilate it like I cannot even get myself together and I'm crying on the phone with him

“for a long time until I'm able to finally pull myself together and I remember we went to like this”

town festival and there were abortion protesters outside the festival and I couldn't go in we went back to the car went back home because I immediately started crying so it was an extreme trigger for me throughout this whole time and I am just you know this is my fault I did this I made this decision is totally my fault and something now do you want to make clear is that I am still very much pro choice at this point like I made this decision this is my fault this is something I should not have

done but I know I feel like that applies to anybody else that is very much my own internal decision anybody else can do whatever they want but for me I still to this day I feel like it's a wrong decision even though I made peace with it at this point yeah I kind of I still feel that on there's no you know you felt the way you did right like well-doring but then even right after you knew right away and I don't think that's something that you change your mind on that's just how you truly felt you know and that's

“just like you said that that's your case and I think that that's something that like you all”

you can do is over time make peace with that but like doesn't mean it's going to change you know like

never mind I made it right decision you know what I mean it's just something where you you

grasp it and many different ways right so we are kind of a junction where we decide either we want to go IVF or we want to go adoption and in my mind I'm thinking I'm never going to be pregnant because I'm being punished so even if we go IVF it's not going to work we're going to spend all this money like logically it's wrong the same amount of money to go either path for us so we're not going to go that way because it's just not going to work for me I know right now even

not considering science or medicine or anything that I'm just in my gut I know that's not going to work so we decide to go the adoption route and there's a lot of stuff we have to do to prepare

for it like we bought a house and then we saved up our money and stuff and then we finally found

an agency and everything worked out the way that we wanted it to to start the process for adoption and we have one of the most unusual adoption cases because we had five adoption failures in a row before we got our son and every buddy that I spoke to even we had two separate agencies that we had are kind of like a broker almost or people like the birth mother is contact them and they connect you with a birth family but there's also a separate agency that does all of like the paperwork like

bureaucracy kind of stuff is a different agency but everybody I'm talking to at both agencies are like

I've never seen somebody go through this many failures and why was it a failure so

just like multiple different factors multiple different factors and I can kind of talk about them I won't go into too much detail because they're not my stories to tell yeah you know and a birth mom has every right to keep her kid for whatever reason up until the point of when they

“terminate their rights and so the very first one I remember being very skeptical about it and my”

has been being very optimistic about it so we're in contact with a mom we have been matched for a while we're like texting her everything seems to be going fine she text us and says I'm going into labor can you come down and this is in we're in Milwaukee this isn't Chicago so it's an hour and a half drive so we drive down there and then we're texting her what hospital are you at

and she never replies and then keep trying to contact her she never replies never replies

and finally the agency gets in contact with her and she decides to keep the child so that was very devastating for us on multiple ways but all of them were devastating in multiple levels but that was the first time it had happened and Franklin was very my husband Franklin was very

“optimistic about the whole thing he was like yeah this is gonna work right now but baby today”

this is gonna be great and I was just like yeah you know she has time before she can make her decision so I don't want to get excited so I'm guarded but he's not and he was crushed I'm sure that first time he was he had absolutely no no idea that it would not work out so that did not

go well and in my brain I'm like well that's because you're never going to have a baby so just

deal with it like this is gonna happen every time the next one we're in Milwaukee she's in Dallas we drive all the way down to Dallas same situation like we've been talking to her and texting her and all this stuff we drive down to Dallas we go to the hospital she tells us the name of the hospital we get there and they say that she's not there there's nobody by that name there and it's like one o'clock in the morning we're like are you serious so we end up spending the night try to contact her

she never replies the agency's trying to contact her no reply she's like she doesn't have her own phone she's using her brother's phone so we are talking to the brother and the brother's like oh she's in the hospital we just you know need some time but it didn't work out so that also sucked but that sucked even more because we drove all the way down to Dallas and now we have to drive all the way back and then we had one where we were on the phone with her and then it didn't work out she didn't pick us

so we had a long conversation we thought that we vibed with her didn't work out so that one didn't hurt us much it was just kind of like all bummer and then we had one in Mississippi and that one was really tough because that that mom we were very close to we had been with her for a long time we were matched with her a couple of months before she had the baby we talked to her several times we really connected with her we went down and saw her in the baby in the hospital and the baby was born on

Christmas Eve and she's like Merry Christmas here's your baby you know all of this kind of like my job's done here's your baby you take her all of this stuff and then we come back the next day when the baby and her are gonna be released and she's different you can kind of tell like her mood has changed a little bit and she's like can I just take the baby for a little bit take her out of the hospital or like okay and then they call us in the in a gas station parking lot they like hand over the

baby to us and they're like here you go here's the baby we're done we had some time with her said goodbye now here's your baby so we have this baby in our possession for like a couple of hours

“at this point and I remember trying desperately to connect with this baby like very much”

being like oh this is our baby let me feed her I'm gonna love her trying to call her by like the name that we have picked out for her and all the stuff and I'm just not feeling it like you know you

your baby like you have that kind of instant connection between the two of you and I remember like

holding this baby and feeling this baby and being like I just don't I really want this to work out but I just don't feel anything for this baby and I don't know why that was but it just wasn't there and we have her for like four or five hours before the mom calls us and it says I want the baby back that's her right she hasn't signed the paperwork yet the paperwork's not gonna be signed from another like two days because different states have different times that the mother has to decide

on whether or not she's gonna keep the baby so she technically still has two more days so we give the baby back and then she doesn't show up for the parental right termination and we kind of knew it we kind of knew when we came back the next day and her mood had shifted that she was not going through she was not kind of follow through and even so I was like I don't feel like this is my baby and you can probably you I think you sent it to yeah so that one really

sucked because we had a physical baby yeah in our arms and then the baby had to be given back and all of this stuff and at this point we're at the end of our adoption contract because you have two

“years on your contract and after the two years you have to pay all of the money again so essentially”

like to renew it to renew it so like signing a brand new contract we're like do we even want to do that because that's a lot of money yeah and we have to go through all of this again and our like we're totally bumped at this point and have gone through so many failures people are telling us

like this is so abnormal like this has never happened to any family we've ever worked with before and

I'm like well it's because I'm never going to have a baby I know this like in my brain I'm just like well I know I know all of these are going to fail they're never going to work out and so around this time I think maybe actually before we had before that baby in Mississippi was born that I went to therapy because I knew like this is not right I can't like keep blaming myself I can't keep having the

“skills on myself that's what I talk about it I need to talk to somebody about it so I find a therapist”

and then I'm only having three sessions with her I only only need it three sessions with her but basically what we talked about was letting go of my abortion and just letting go of that and stop blaming myself for that and stop having all of these like negative connotations with what had happened like blaming yourself so many years ago because this is like 2018 at this point so this is over 10 years since it's happened and I'm still internalizing it and I'm still saying like

I'm never getting pregnant because this is my punishment I'm never going to have a baby because

this is my punishment this is what is happening to me and we're going to keep trying but it's never going to happen so I went to therapy the therapist had me write a letter to my baby and I did and I apologize and I said it's time to let you go and you know goodbye we're done and then the next failure happens and I'm like I'm still pretty bummed about it but at the same time this is the one where I'm like that I'm just not feeling it and then the agency comes back to us and like

we can renew your contract for three months and we'll see what happens but after that we can't

“renew it again you have to you have to redo the whole thing and during that three months is when we get”

matched with my son's mom and even so during that time it's not that long after the previous failure it's like only a couple of days maybe a couple of weeks or like do we even want to do this right now and I convince my husband I was like listen this is probably our last shot because she is not due until after our renewal is over so it's kind of like now this is it like either we take this or we don't have another chance unless we want to decide to pay all the money again and at this point

we were like we're we're not gonna do that we and me that decision we were gonna take a break at least before considering it again so we make a decision we're like okay well we'll stay with her we'll accept this match and we'll see if it works out and we talked to her several times we actually

while she was still pregnant so this was in Atlanta so we flew down to Atlanta had a nice little

weekend went sightseeing had dinner with her just wasn't anything special we just kind of talked her a little bit about herself and like you know told her a little bit more about us and person and just like had a nice dinner and that was really all of our interaction with her I do think that made a difference okay and her decision because she got to physically need us we weren't just people on a phone that you that you could ghost at this point we were we were real people and I think that helped

so she goes into labor we drive down with Atlanta and we get there like one o'clock in the morning

and the babies in the NICU he had like that jaundice thing going on so they had them under lights

“in the NICU and so visiting in a baby in the NICU is very difficult they you have to have a code”

from like the mom to be able to even go in and see the baby and we're like okay we don't have a thought it's one o'clock in the morning the mom is asleep I don't want to bother her I want to go to the morning but can I please just see the baby and they were very nice they had no idea what it was going on with an adoption they had no idea how to handle it but they were very nice and they said okay you can go in one other time and you can see the baby for like five minutes and so I went in

and I looked at the baby and I made that as my son well like immediate limbic this is my son

and I knew right away and there was like no questioning whatsoever and so the next day we actually meet them in the hospital and she was very logical well everybody else had been very emotional about their decisions she was just like I don't have a car I don't have a car seat I don't have anywhere to put this baby like yeah just doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense for me to keep this baby like what am I gonna do with it I can't even take it home and so she they in Georgia they

“signed the paperwork pretty quickly I think it might be it's either 24 or 48 hours after birth”

but then they still have five days after that to make their decision so they can kind of like go back on the paperwork for five days not so nerve-wracking I would not like that yeah it's where we lived on this continent was 30 days which is crazy because you know obviously like I understand to give the mother the right but like let's take into consideration all the hormones all the emotion you know like that doesn't mean that that lifestyle would be fit for that child

in comparison to people that are adopting because they want to start a family not because you know what I mean like that makes it difficult and I could go I could go speak for hours about adoption and how I feel about that but I will say like there are people who probably shouldn't have kept their babies that kept their babies right but in the end that's not my decision so they're decision rules that's the rules so it is what it is and I try not to think about it yeah it's because then I'll just

make me sad but with this one with our son like it was very much a black and white I cannot take care of this baby you can take care of this baby here you go and it also helped that the baby was in the neck you so the baby wasn't right there with her she didn't have to take care of it she didn't have to bond she didn't have to worry about it because the baby was gone and she could go see it if she

“wanted to but she didn't have to and I don't I think she went and said goodbye to him before she”

left the hospital but okay that was it now are they allowed to stay in contact with you guys yes okay so it depends on the type of adoption you choose you can choose an open or a closed adoption so close adoption means no contact whatsoever open adoption you make the rules together okay so we have her phone number she has our phone number if she wants to call us we she can we know her name we know where she lives roughly like we don't have our address but we know roughly where she is so

if we wanted to find her we very easily could if we wanted to talk to her we very easily could but how would you feel if she wanted to be a part of your baby's life let's say like five years ten years down the road I think that's okay okay and so my son is six now okay he asked about her sometimes and we have pictures of her that we show him and we're like this is your birth mommy you grew up in her tummy and then she gave you to us so that we could be your parents and he's

at this point so she checked in a couple of times after he was born maybe up to about a year

and then that was okay that was it and it was mostly just text like how is he doing how's this going that was it yeah tell me a picture that's really it so we haven't spoken to her five years this okay and I don't want my son to interact with her until she's ready so at this point he's way too young to really understand yeah that she's not ready so I'm kind of like hedging that line but if he's 15 and he's like I want a meter I'm gonna be like okay yeah we can

reach out to her and see how she feels about that right and again it's her decision you can't force

“yourself upon her but if you want to talk to her at that point go ahead yeah and if she calls us”

tomorrow and says I want to talk to my son and be like okay and then we'll chat we'll do space time we'll co-seer I know I'm totally fine with him having some kind of relationship because it is it is a relationship that could potentially exist and I don't mind got it exists yeah like our son is very much aware that we are his parents and that we raised him and that he loves us and that we love him but you've got this other family out there that may want to connect

with you sometime that's incredible yeah it's a lot of people I'm sure aren't like that

yeah it's hard it is hard it's like you I think it's worried seven in a lot of ways it's like you just don't know you know so the end of the day everybody's just a human yeah you know and it's

“difficult do you guys want to adopt again or you just gonna have one you think and no we're done okay”

so we do right away one this one with my son was successful and we were bringing him home we're like no we can't go through this again okay because there's no guarantee like we go through five more failures and then it just takes a toll on you every single time because you prepare yourself for the worst but then the worst happens draining and it's draining and it's just so much it's a lot of money it's a lot of time it's a lot of emotional investments to be able to

do that again so I just don't think that we're gonna have any more kids we're done and then when he came into your life did you feel any more of that guilty feeling or sadness from the abortion or do you think that after the sessions with your therapist you really were able to clear a big chunk of that I think my sessions with the therapist really helped okay I think that got me passed so much of it and then having my son in my life and having an adoption that

“actually was successful I think kind of sealed the deal like okay that chapter of my life is over”

yeah and now I'm gonna move forward with my son and I think too to look at it in a way of like I did something so good you know like I'm giving a child a great life yeah you know that wouldn't have otherwise made me maybe not have had that you know and I think that's such a rewarding and special thing to do yeah and I think it's just it worked out the way that it was supposed to and a lot of things went right to when it happened so had any of those previous

adoptions worked out I wouldn't have had a paid maternity leave because my job didn't offer it for adoption specifically and then the year Alex was born so the last people was born on Christmas Eve and Alex was born in April the year that he was born was the first year that they allowed paid maternity leave for adoption so I was like all right I get paid for my leave and it's really

connected to him at the time wow that's incredible yeah so I got my pee leave I got all I

got 12 weeks with him before we put him a daycare like everything just worked out the way it was supposed to and he is so much my son there's no other mommy for him like he is the birth mom that's great but I am his mom right and he is mine yeah and then so that was six years ago and then it was just recently that you kind of had I guess this thought of kind of not resurfacing but speaking out about just kind of your whole journey of it yeah okay yeah and I just felt like

it was the time it was the time and it was something that I could share and maybe somebody could

situation can yet even just like the adoption act or let you know like anything because yeah you know I I really have been wanting to have somebody on the show to speak about the aftermath and the effects of an abortion because you know like I think that some people might get one and feel like okay this was the right decision even if they do feel that way it could

“still hurt and I think that it's important for people to know that it isn't just this cut and”

dry thing and sometimes you don't even know how it's going to make you feel until after you do it which is a art part you know like it can seem like a very black and white situation and then you do it and that is a big thing you know it's a big decision and it's scary and there's a lot of emotions held there and I think that there's so many I tell people this too I know I said I kind of in the

beginning and every other episode as well and I'm like calls but you know there's always

somebody that can relate to different parts of your story different aspects of your story and that's you know the beauty of sharing story sharing different aspects of it that's why when I invite people on the show I'm like please share every part of your life you know because there's somebody that will hear that and be like I felt that way or I went through that and it's important and even with the failure aspect of you know the adoption it's like that could easily be something where you

just want to give up because it is so draining right but the outcome was so beautiful you know and I know it's like people don't always want to hear it but things do happen for a reason things don't work out and do work out to get you to where you're supposed to be and I think that you know once again kind of going back to what I said in the beginning as well you know you've built this beautiful life for yourself you know you have your family you could keep all this in the past and while it is there

you know I think there's something incredible about taking what happened and using it now to

help others you know and and let people know they aren't alone because you know it's it's so easy

“to just you know life is busy it's very easy to just keep the ball rolling push things in the back”

push things in the back but it is better to talk about things you know even if it is just a few therapy sessions like it's not nobody saying like you have to be dedicated and committed to speaking to somebody every day for the rest of your life but I think acknowledging that it's not fair for you to hold the guilt it's not like life's too short you know like it's not fair to beat ourselves up have guilt have bleeding anything because that that takes away from other aspects

of our lives from ourselves from our partner from children anything so I think that it's amazing that you made that decision as well because that's scary too you know like even to open up old wounds and be like all right where do I start like let me just pour it all out you know and I think there is something empowering about that because you are able to to speak out about it and be like well like I'm stronger than I thought that I'm able to go back through these details because it isn't

“always an easy thing to do yeah it's not it's not always easy and I think it's something that”

it's easier it's easier to talk to a stranger about yeah then to my family because I don't absolutely because there's no there's not as much judgment there it's like they're the very unbiased like just tell me your story kind of thing yeah and I don't have to worry about them thinking about it later bringing it up later right like that so there there are people in my family that I have opened up to about it since then certain people I have not certain people who might learn from it

from this but it is what it is and we'll talk about it if we need to talk about it but I think it's it was more important for me to just talk about it in general because I feel like somebody else is going to go through this even if it's just one part of my story somebody else is going to go through this right and it like I said it really is something that I mean it's crazy but like it it happens every day you know what I mean and I think that there are so many different

emotions or lack of emotions that people and maybe the other potential too is somebody might make that decision not feel anything and then five years down the road it hits them you know

like you never know how you're going to react to something when it's going to come back up and

I think that it's okay to you can regret things but still not blame yourself right because and we have to be gentle with ourselves you know at the end of the day where we have to make decisions sometimes in that moment and it's very much based on where we are in life the people around us the support we have don't have and even though sometimes it's decisions that we make there's a lot more that goes into it right now and it's not it's just not fair but it

look where you are now you know and it does teach you things and it allows you to spread awareness

of course like it's very it's so it's so amazing to me when people come in they're like never

really shared my story before and they're like so good it's just executing you know what they've been there and how they felt and the different moving parts of it and I could not express enough I tell people this all this time it is not an easy thing to do you know you're coming to someone you don't know so you're telling me and then you know that like there's a camera there it's going to be online you know so it's it's incredible it's important and there will always always

always be somebody that will appreciate it and can really and it's so grateful to hear your story because like I always say like imagine if it was you then and you could just type something in and then you just hear this person story and you're like damn exactly how I got it makes you

feel better like it's like I'm not alone I'm not a bad person like you know I right I always

I'm always so impressed with people's vulnerability when they're able to just sit there and and just

“tell people honestly how something made them feel because it changes it changes the trajectory”

to so many other people's mindsets about themselves and situations they went through well thank you for having the platform course yes of course I love it here it's incredible like I it is taught me so much I learned so much about people I learned so much about different situations it's funny because I feel like I go through phases where you know for a for a while I was able to really separate it you know and then like more recently I'm like more

into and with my emotions so like I'll feel it more when I'm hearing stories and I'm like God this is hard like my eyes but no it's it's incredible you know it teaches me so much and I'm just so grateful that I have a platform that's growing because of people real people stories you know like

we don't have enough of that I always say it's like yeah there's like documentaries there's this

and there's that but it's like the more time that goes on in the world around us the more scripted right fake things yeah you don't even really get the real story out like I used to love watching things like that and I'm like I watch it and I'm like I feel like I don't even really

“know more about this story or anything right so that's why I always tell people I'm like whatever”

you feel called to share like obviously people have kind of this one chunk of their life maybe that they're like okay this is a story when to share but I always tell people I'm like it's like a book you know if you got the book and you just read the middle of it what's the point you know it's like you want to hear someone's background what kind of led up to this and then the aftermath it's so full circle you know you get to see you know the some of the lowest parts of people's lives

and then some of the highest parts you know when it's so incredible and for me it I'm able that's why I like to go into a client league because I'm like an audience member I get to hear it I get to ask and then you know it just allows me to be so open and judgment free and everyone I wish the world was more like that because everyone is on their own path like what is judging you or anybody gonna do for me it's not gonna change my life you know what it means so I just don't

understand why people are like that and you know my goal is just to make people feel like they can use their voice and people can just listen and either learn or relate and it's as simple as

“that like it doesn't have to be anything else you know and it just I think it's very it's very simple”

it's very raw it's very open and I just want it to grow for you guys because I'm like I wish I would like a lot of my episodes you know I'm like I wish they'd get more views like I won't everybody to like here and see these stories because there's so there's like thousands of people that can relate to each one but I want all those thousands of people that I can relate to to get out to them because it's like sometimes that makes the biggest difference right you know like just

to not feel alone and I feel like of course you can go to therapy and that's great but there's nothing like somebody that just gets it because they went through it too it's like a different little community there and I feel like it doesn't even have to be you know two people talking but it's just like oh I can hear it and I can support this person and and be like wow I get how she feels or he feels and vice versa and I think that's the beauty in it and yeah it will reach

many people I'm so proud of you thank you so much for coming out here and wanting to share your story I mean so much to me thank you for having me of course was there anything else you wanted to include you thank you God at all I think I got it all you did amazing