“I Chose Love”: Zama’s Story of Adoption, Healing and Lifelong Support

I met my ex-husband during the first month of what was supposed to be a seven-month stay on an island in the USA. I was working there, far from home, and I thought I'd found love.

In our third month of dating, he proposed. We got married a week before the people from my country in our group were due to leave the island. At the time, I believed we were building a life together.

Looking back, I can see that we were entering a marriage with very different understandings of what love was supposed to look like.

The night before we were meant to leave, he revealed things about himself and the life he wanted that I wasn't comfortable with. He told me it was a test of our love, so I endured it. After that, it felt as though there was always another test, another expectation, another way I wasn't enough.

I was exhausted. I was already thinking about leaving when I discovered I was pregnant.

The Pregnancy That Changed Everything

The nausea was unbearable. The smell of my husband's perfume could send me running to the bathroom. Eventually, I bought a pregnancy test and took it without telling him. It was positive. He found the test in the rubbish and confronted me.

He was excited. I was terrified. I initially tried to deny that it was mine, but there were so few people I knew on the island that it didn't take long for the truth to become obvious.

He bought me more tests, and when another came back positive, my heart sank.My first thought was abortion. I knew I needed to get out of that marriage, and I was afraid of bringing a child into the life I was living.

But I was on an island, financially dependent on someone who wanted me to stay, and I couldn't access the option I was considering. When my husband went to work, I would spend the day crying. I eventually began searching the internet for ways out of my situation.

I wanted to leave the marriage, but I was terrified that having a child with him would mean remaining connected to him indefinitely. I was worried about what my son would learn from the environment his father was creating and what that environment might teach him about relationships.

I had seen enough to know that the life I was living wasn't the life I wanted for my child. I didn't want him to grow up believing that what I was experiencing was normal.

I didn't want him to inherit a version of love that required one person to keep enduring things that hurt them.I wanted something different for him.

During one of those desperate internet searches, I stumbled across the American Adoptions website.

Before that moment, adoption had never really crossed my mind. I thought it was something that happened in movies, in stories about children who grew up in orphanages.

I hadn't understood that there were families actively hoping to adopt, or that an adoption agency could support a birth mother through the process. As I read the stories on the website, something happened that I still struggle to describe. I felt relief. Not a little relief. It was as though I had taken a deep breath for the first time in months.

Suddenly, there was another possibility. I could make a plan for my son's future without having to remain in the situation I was trying so desperately to escape. I could leave the marriage.

My son could grow up in a loving home. And I could make a decision that I believed would protect him from the life I was afraid he would otherwise inherit. I knew what I wanted to do.

Finding My Son's Family

I wanted my son to have Christian parents. I wanted him to grow up surrounded by love and warmth, in a home where Jesus was more than a name people used on Sundays.

I began looking through prospective adoptive-parent profiles. I looked through so many that I eventually had to stop and examine my own heart. I had been looking at families who appeared wealthy and wondering whether they could give my son a good life.

But I started worrying that I was confusing financial security with the kind of home I actually wanted him to have. I remember thinking, I'm not trying to sell my baby. I'm trying to find him a family.I wanted love. I wanted warmth.

I wanted a family whose faith was genuine and whose home would give him room to grow.

Then I found them.

Their profile arrived on its own, rather than in a group with several other profiles. I remember being drawn to how openly they spoke about their faith.

The mother's smile radiated warmth, and the father looked like the kind of bear who could flip a street with one swipe, in the best possible way. I loved their profile, but I was cautious.

I'd thought I understood love before, and that experience had taught me not to assume too much too quickly.

Then we started emailing. Our correspondence was immediate, enthusiastic, and ridiculously long. We discovered how much we had in common.

I felt as though I'd found people who understood me, people I could imagine being connected to for the rest of our lives. I even wondered whether we'd found our soulmates. But I kept my feet on the ground and waited to meet them.The day before I gave birth, we finally met in person.

We went to Applebee's and talked for hours. Eventually, the staff had to ask us to leave, even though it felt as though we'd only been sitting there for ten minutes. Meeting them felt strangely familiar, like seeing people I'd known before. I felt seen. I felt loved. I didn't feel judged. And their faith was even more genuine than I'd imagined. I cannot overstate what a relief that was.

I had been looking for a Christian family, and I found people whose love for Jesus was something they actually lived out.They brought me matching fish necklaces. I could tell they were nervous that I might change my mind, and I kept reassuring them that my decision was firm.

Meeting them didn't make me question my decision. It made me more certain of it. I had found my son's family.

The Birth of My Son

As my due date approached, I became anxious that the adoptive parents might change their minds. I'd watched too many stories online about adoption falling through, and I was frightened by the possibility of being left to navigate a situation I had worked so hard to resolve.

When I went in for my C-section, I asked his adoptive mother to accompany me into theatre. I wanted her to experience as much of that moment as possible.

When my son was born and the nurses tried to hand him to me, I asked them to give him to her instead. I wanted her to hold him and begin bonding with him. Afterward, I slept for hours. When I woke up, they had the baby. 

I told myself to think of it as visiting a friend's newborn. It might sound unusual, but at the time, I believed that keeping some emotional distance would help me follow through with my decision.I knew I had made this choice for a reason. I wanted to give both of us the opportunity to move forward into the lives I believed were right for us.

The adoption process wasn't without its difficulties. There was tension surrounding the paperwork and my ex-husband's involvement, and I was under considerable pressure from him during a time when I was already physically and emotionally vulnerable.

I was desperate for the process to be completed so that I could finally leave that chapter of my life behind.

When everything was over, I felt enormous relief. I was no longer pregnant. My son was with his parents. I could begin building a different life. At the time, I thought that was the end of the difficult part. I didn't yet understand how much I had put aside just to get through it.

Coming Home

After the adoption, I drank to cope. Alcohol was part of the culture around me on the island, so it didn't initially feel as though anything was particularly wrong.

I was relieved that the pregnancy was over, and I kept moving forward without really examining what I was feeling. But my circumstances remained difficult.

When my ex-husband returned to the island, the abuse escalated, and I became increasingly afraid for my safety.

Eventually, I returned to my country.

I thought coming home would mean being surrounded by people who would help me recover from everything I'd been through. Instead, I found myself facing a different kind of pain.

My family already knew about the baby through information shared by a prophet. Rather than asking whether I was safe, whether I was okay, or what I had experienced, the family held an intervention.

I left feeling as though I had been condemned for bringing shame and pain to the family. No one seemed particularly interested in what had happened to me. People were angry, and I couldn't understand what I had supposedly done to them that warranted that anger.

My mother didn't want to discuss the adoption. Whenever I brought up my son, I felt disapproval in her response. I needed someone to tell me that, given the circumstances I was in, I had made the best decision I could. Instead, I was left feeling as though I had done something unforgivable.

For years, I tried to earn back the approval I felt I'd lost. I went deeper into religion, hoping to find answers, but that sometimes left me feeling even more burdened.

I worked relentlessly, often pushing myself until I was too exhausted to think. I wasn't drinking or smoking anymore, but work and the need to please people had become ways of avoiding my own feelings.

I kept going. I kept trying. I kept putting other people's expectations ahead of my own needs.

I received pictures of my son and updates about his life, and I was grateful for them. But I would sometimes cry after looking at the pictures, alone with feelings I didn't know how to explain.I loved seeing him grow. I loved knowing he was happy and safe.

Yet there was a part of my own experience that I had never really allowed myself to examine. For a long time, I thought the answer was simply to keep going and not think about it too much.

The Family That Became My Family

One of the most beautiful parts of my adoption story is that my relationship with my son's parents didn't end when the adoption was finalized. It grew into something I could never have anticipated.

In 2016, after my ex-husband threw me out, my son's parents took me in. I stayed with them for a month. I felt safe.

I don't think I fully understood the significance of that experience at the time. Looking back, I see it as reassurance from God that my son was in safe hands.

The people I had chosen to raise him were also willing to open their home to me when I needed somewhere to go. Their kindness wasn't performative.

They were genuinely loving, caring people, and they welcomed me without making me feel like a burden. They even helped me overcome my fear of dogs!

More importantly, I experienced a kind of Christian love that I had struggled to recognize in some of the places where I had previously sought it. They didn't need me to prove that I deserved kindness before they offered it.

Over the years, my son's mother and I have become so close that we call each other sisters. Sometimes I think God knew that both of us needed this relationship, even before either of us knew it ourselves.

We talk regularly. We share ordinary things about our lives. We can text each other to vent about something completely unrelated to adoption. They send pictures, video, and voice notes on birthdays, and our relationship has developed into a genuine family bond.

They have always been open with our son about me and his older sister. He knows his story, and I know about his life.

Our open adoption has been a gift that keeps on giving. It hasn't meant that every feeling has been easy or that I never wonder about the future.

But it has meant that my son can know me, his parents can have a relationship with me, and we can all care about one another without pretending that only one family relationship can matter. I will always be grateful for that.

Learning to Speak About My Son

For a long time, I kept my feelings about the adoption to myself.

In 2023, my family went through a difficult period when my mother experienced a mental-health crisis. My sisters began turning to me for help, and our relationships gradually began to heal. I found myself talking about my son more openly and showing my sisters his pictures. It felt strange at first. I had spent so many years treating this part of my life as something to be ashamed of.

Now I was allowing it to be part of ordinary conversation. I liked that. I had spent years trying to fit into the role my family expected me to play.

Eventually, I became tired of seeking their approval and resigned myself to being the black sheep.

But something was changing. I was beginning to understand that I didn't have to keep carrying guilt simply because other people had never made room for my experience.

In 2026, I finally began counselling, with help from American Adoptions. I had reached a point where I knew I needed support. I was carrying feelings and beliefs that had followed me for years, and I wanted to understand them rather than continue pushing through life while pretending I was fine.

Therapy has been a turning point. I have begun to understand how much of my life was shaped by trying to please people, how often I put my own needs aside, and how long I had been carrying guilt that no longer served me.

I can finally acknowledge that placing my son for adoption was a good decision given the circumstances I was in.

I can be grateful for the family he has without treating my own pain as proof that I made the wrong choice. I can love my son without needing to punish myself for not raising him. And I can take responsibility for the life I am building now without believing that I must spend the rest of my life trying to make up for the adoption.

I am learning that I can choose love without abandoning myself.

What I Hope My Son Understands

One day, I hope my son will understand the circumstances in which I made this decision.I hope he will understand that I wasn't looking for a way to get rid of him.

I was looking for a way to give him a different life from the one I was afraid he would experience if he remained in the environment I was trying to escape.

I believe the environment in which we grow up shapes our understanding of love, relationships, and what we consider normal.

We can learn and change as we grow older, but the things we experience early in life can shape our deepest beliefs.

I had seen enough of my ex-husband's life and the patterns he carried to be afraid of what might be passed down to our son. I couldn't predict exactly what the future would hold, but I knew the environment I was in wasn't what I wanted for my child.I had also experienced what genuine love could look like, and I wanted that for him.

I wanted him to have parents who loved one another, a home where he felt safe, and the opportunity to grow into himself without having to make sense of the things I had been struggling to survive.

I chose the family I believed could give him those things.I know that one day he will grow up and form his own opinions about me, his father, his adoption, and the decisions the adults in his life made.

I cannot control how he will feel, and I don't expect him to see everything exactly as I do. I only hope that, when he reads my story, he will understand that love was at the centre of my decision.

Not a perfect kind of love. Not a decision made in perfect circumstances. But a love that wanted him to have the best chance at a different life. And I hope he knows that I have never stopped caring about him.

My Story is Still Being Written

When I first found American Adoptions, I was a young woman who felt trapped and desperately needed another way forward.I found that way forward. I found my son's parents, and I found a family I never expected to become part of my own life.

But I also spent years carrying guilt, suppressing feelings, and trying to become acceptable to people who didn't understand what I had experienced. I am only now learning to let some of that go.

My life isn't perfect. I haven't achieved everything I hoped I would, and I am still working toward the stability and future I want for myself and my daughter.

I am still learning, healing, and becoming a person I feel proud to be. But I no longer believe that I have to carry guilt to prove that I love my son. I can celebrate the family he has. I can be honest about the circumstances that led me to adoption.

I can acknowledge the difficult parts of my journey without allowing them to define the rest of my life.

American Adoptions helped me find my son's family in 2014. Twelve years later, they helped me find support for myself. I will always be grateful for both.

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Zama’s story is a reminder that you don’t have to navigate difficult circumstances or decisions alone. If her experience resonates with you, or you're considering adoption for your baby, American Adoptions is here to listen and help you explore your options.

Reach out to an adoption specialist today to talk about your situation and find the support you deserve.

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