(60-minute Workshop Panel) This is a very rare opportunity to hear directly from birth moms — why they chose adoption for their babies, what they expected and what was on their hearts at the time. Learn whether & how they stayed involved in the child's upbringing, how they got support & care after placement, and how they feel now looking back on their decision.

Megan, a young mother of two boys, tells how she decided on an open adoption with the news of an unexpected pregnancy.

From ‘Burden to Blessing.’

In the early years of college, my voice was stolen from me in a way I didn’t fully realize until later. Unable and unwilling to process the trauma in a healthy manner, I dove into my studies. As a musician, I hid in the practice room, preparing for multiple ensembles and voice lessons. I did my best to keep appearances. I was able to graduate with two degrees, cum laude in four years. Next up: grad school. As the practice & study routine that I’d become accustomed to was interrupted, the trauma of my past caught up to me. I started to experience flashbacks that affected my relationships and kept me up at night.

Of two things I am certain: 1) that my daughter loves me and 2) that I made the right choice. I am a birthfather and 24 years ago I chose to place my daughter, Belle, in open adoption.

When I think back about our pregnancy and Belle’s birth, it’s hard to pinpoint any singular moment in time when her birthmother and I decided that adoption was right for us. There was no “light-bulb” moment, no aligning of the stars. It’s complicated and it was hard for us and our families, but it was the right choice for Belle. I am 41 years old now and it still makes my heart race just think back about that time in my life.

The charity, faith and agony of 48 hours. The story of a Texas teenager’s unplanned pregnancy and the decision to give up her parental rights within a closed adoption process which unfolds within a hospital setting, hours after the child’s birth. With a last hour petition of the baby’s father made known through social media.

At the age of 24, I left the health department and felt like a huge failure for the second time in my life because I was again single and pregnant. When I was 19 years old, I became pregnant and married my child’s father because I thought it would be the best thing for my child to have two parents living together. That child, Noah, was born in 1996 and within the first year of his life, he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and epilepsy and then autism later on. His father and I had married for all the wrong reasons and the difficulty of parenting a child with special needs was more strain than our marriage could handle so we split up.