marilee is the beautiful brunette on the left.marilee is yet another twitter friend. she has been so fun to get to know and there is so much more to her and her life's story than what she had room to share here. i highly recommend you become her facebook friend as she invites you to do so at the end of her post.
i love this post. i love her honesty ...and i think her post is especially important on the heels of nikki's post this week. i cannot express enough how important it is to keep your promises.
i share this mostly for adoptive couples who may not be living up to their promises and pray that as i do so, that more people will be inspired by nikki's courage and change.
if you are an expectant mother and are considering adoption for your baby, please know that not every adoption sounds like this one. many (most, even) of the adoptive couples that i know love, honor and respect their birth parents and the promises they have made to them ...many, like me, even consider it a privilege to have birth families in their lives.
however, marilee's story is important and needs to be told. she should be loved and adored for her choice, not forgotten and dismissed.
love you, marilee.
He went home for the summer and sure enough, I found out I was pregnant. His parents wanted nothing to do with me or our son and must not have realized it takes 2 people to get pregnant. I told my family, and they just about had a heart attack. Their perfect little Baptist daughter screwed up big time. Sean's parents wanted me to get an abortion and offered to pay for it so their son wouldn't have to pay child support. I was scared and didn't want to lose Sean, but I didn't want to lose my baby either. My parents stopped talking to me for a while, so I googled adoption. I honestly didn't see any other options. I found a family that I thought was great so I contacted the agency and sent an email to the family. We emailed back a forth a few times and finally they called me. We talked for over 4 hours that night, and I honestly felt like part of their family. Landon was still my little seamonkey, so I didn't see any problems with placing him. It all felt "right".
Sean started talking to them also, but he's really shy. Their contact was not as often as ours. Sean finally told his parents he was coming back to Iowa to help me when I was over 6 months pregnant, and I finally felt like this would get better. Sean's parents gave in, but then they started calling Sean and asking him to keep our son. They also started sending me letters asking me to change my mind and would talk about how they'd be great grandparents. We traveled to California in December to meet the Wetmores, and it was awkward at first, but then we started getting along once the inital meeting was over. We signed a contract saying we would get 2 visits a year and recieve hard copies of pictures once a month. Of course Sean and I knew it wasn't legally binding, but we had faith that they would follow through with their promises.
I started having doubts about giving Landon up more and more as the pregnancy progressed. I told the counselor that I wanted to at least consider raising Landon, and I was told that I was unfit to be a mother. The Wetmores came when I was close to having Landon and spent time with him in the hospital. The nurses went to the Wetmores for all of the decisions and looked at me like I was horrible for wanting to spend time with him. Every time Sean and I asked to spnd time with him alone, we were told we could have it later. I kept trying to put off signing the papers until Sean and I got to spend time alone with him, but finally he had to be taken home and Sean and I didn't have anything to take care of him. We were told after we terminated our rights we would get to be alone with Landon for the first time. We were also told we'd get to say goodbye to him alone. We were told we were too young to be parents and it wouldn't be fair to have another girl take "their" child back. They renamed him Alexander Bradford after we were told they would keep the name we gave him. We never got to spend time with him, and they left the state without telling us. My parents also spent over $5,000 paying Landon's medical bills since they refused to pay them. I guess some people are so desperate to adopt that they lie about who they are and what they want out of an adoption relationship. They ignore our emails and the agency told me to set up a payment plan or take out a loan when I asked about his medical bills. I'm not saying I regret placing Landon for adoption, I just wish I would have picked a family closer and willing to hold up their end of the deal. The one good thing is the link they have to their website. They have pictures of Landon on their adoption website, so I look at it every day hoping for new pictures.
Sean obviously didn't return to Wartburg when I got pregnant, but did start taking classes at a community college in the area to get back on track. His parents didn't want him to go to college near me at first and he won't be returning to college here in the fall. This is tearing us apart, but I'm trying to keep it together. His parents always say they would have been great grandparents. His aunt even said she would have raised him until Sean was ready for it. If only they realized it might have been differen if they would have been there when this mess first started happening.
My computer crashed recently and I was lucky enough to lose everything. I'm slowly getting pictures back, but I'm the one with the brown hair in the attached file. I'm double majoring in Political Science and Public Relations with a double minor in Marketing and International Relations. I'm adopted, so please don't think that I'm anti-adoption, I just wish there would have been more support on my side. I understand that the Wetmores hired them, but birth moms have feelings too!
If you have facebook, I'm the only Marilee Hicks listed. =)






























