Sixteen years ago tomorrow was a very bittersweet day for me. I had not been feeling well the day before but woke up early before church and took a bath. I still had a few hours before I needed to leave so I went back to bed for a while...and woke up to a drenched bed from my water breaking. The day I had waited for, longed for, hoped for...and yet also terribly feared had finally arrived. My oldest child was to be born.
I knew steadfastly that I was placing my child for adoption...but my conscience still kept asking me 'can you really do it? Can you give birth to this beautiful life, hold her, love her, spend three days with her...and then walk away? Can you really do it?'
I spent three gloriously wonderful but all-too-short days with her rooming in with me. While I was still admitted, she was right there with me...I would not let her out of my sight except with my mom so I could take a shower. I held her, I bathed her, I fed her, I rocked her to sleep, I spent hours just staring at her...and the closer I got to the end of my three days, the louder my conscience was asking 'can you really do this?'
I was discharged after 2 days but she remained in the hospital...the compassion of the doctors and nurses, knowing she was being placed for adoption, to keep her there until her mom and dad would come to take her home.
November 3, 1993. I remember that day as if it were yesterday. I had spent the night with friends in Rockford to be near the hospital. I got up and took a bath and made the drive to the hospital for the last time. I could feel the lump in my throat getting bigger and bigger. I went straight to the nursery and gave my perfect little life a bath...it was so important to me that when Jim and Martha picked her up she was freshly clean. A tear fell down on her while I was giving her a bath and I quickly washed it away. Then I put some lotion on her, a new diaper and a clean tiny baby hospital t-shirt. I swaddled her in a blanket, sat down in the rocking chair and held her as tightly as was safely possible and the damn finally broke. Yes, I had shed tears the day before when my mom told her goodbye, but with reserve. This time the flood gates opened and tears I didn't know I was capable of producing came pouring out of me. I begged her to one day understand why I chose another family to raise her as their own...I begged her to one day understand that I did not abandon her but instead chose the best family I could find to take the precious life I had created and to allow her to grow within their family...I begged her to one day understand that for probably the first time in my life I was thinking of someone before myself and that my whole reason for choosing to place her for adoption was so that she could have a life that I was in no position to offer...I begged her to one day see that I was putting her needs first and not my own selfish wants...I begged her to one day forgive me. My body ached from the crying, my heart felt like it was being ripped from the inside out, I felt a pain from which I did not know if I would ever heal. And that right there was the one time since she was born that I consciously questioned myself...could I really do this?
Beth, the friend I had been staying with and to whom I will forever be grateful, showed up at the hospital just as I began questioning my choices. She wrapped her arms around me as I sobbed uncontrollably and said a prayer. She reaffirmed that I was making the right choice and told me with God's strength, I was going to walk out of the baby nursery and leave the hospital. I told my daughter goodbye for the last time and yes, with God's strength I left the hospital and drove to the courthouse.
I vaguely remember what happened next. I remember being asked if I had given birth to a baby girl on October 31, 1993 and I said yes. I remember being asked if it was my choice to place this child for adoption with Jim and Martha Tuneberg...I said yes and signed the adoption papers. And that is when my little Baby Girl Lund became Jamie Marie Tuneberg.
We started off with a semi-private arrangement...letters and pictures a couple of times a year. Then in April 2000 I received a phone call, telling me that Jamie wanted to meet me and would I come down to Treasure Island, FL. Without even thinking I said YES and we transitioned to an open adoption.
I've been asked countless times if I have ever regretted placing Jamie for adoption and I must say, the answer is a resounding NO. I chose the absolute best family for her that has become part of my extended family. We see each other as often as possible, once or twice a year. I have to laugh at the irony of us moving to Tampa because Treasure Island, where they have a condo, is right across the bay.
So Jamie, I truly hope you have an absolutely wonderful 16th birthday tomorrow! Congratulations on your new car!!! But most importantly, I love you.
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