Your name is [name]Elizabeth[/name] [name]Rowan[/name] [name]Page[/name] and you are a 19-year-old college sophomore attending Oklahoma Wesleyan University. You have been with your boyfriend, [name]Stephen[/name] [name]Elliot[/name] Marquardt for over a year when you find out you are pregnant in the beginning of the second semester. You eventually work up the nerve to tell your boyfriend and, of course, he freaks out. But once things settle down, you two have a long, intimate talk. You tell your family the news, as well as your decision: to put the baby up for adoption.
Your boyfriend’s stepfather puts you in touch with a local adoption agency that performs both open and blind adoptions. Because you want to make sure your unborn child is given the best home he or she deserves, you choose the parents carefully, balancing the pros and cons of them all. After maybe two months, you finally pick the right couple: [name]Noah[/name] [name]Jack[/name] [name]Smith[/name] and [name]Charlize[/name] [name]Irma[/name] [name]Smith[/name] of Louisville. He is an Architect and she is an Artist. You arrange an interview with them a week later and they arrive very excited. You fire questions at them like gunshots, but they always bounce back. They are instantly charming. You are now certain you have made the right choice.
Over the next seven months, you grow close to [name]Charlize[/name] and [name]Noah[/name]. You decide that you don’t want to see the baby, but you would like to keep in touch with them. They are perfectly fine with that, especially since you never know what could happen. Your boyfriend, however, seems to be pulling away; he says that he doesn’t want to get too attached to the baby before giving it up. You can’t really blame him. It’s been pretty hard on you, too, but you are in too deep to back out now. Then, you finally have the baby. Your boyfriend goes with you to the delivery room while the adoptive parents wait outside.
What is the baby’s gender? Boy
An hour after the baby is born, the adoptive parents say they have picked a first name for the baby, but cannot settle on a middle name. So, they give you and your boyfriend the honor of choosing.
What is the baby’s name? [name]Aiden[/name] [name]Dominic[/name] [name]Smith[/name]
Three days later, you and the baby, [name]Aiden[/name], leave the hospital. After an emotional goodbye, you give the baby to his/her new parents. You and your boyfriend watch their car depart from the hospital, then quietly walk back to his car, as he pushes you along in your wheelchair.
— ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It has been 7 years since you put your baby up for adoption. You have since graduated from college with a degree in Medicine, moved to an apartment in Dothan, [name]AL[/name], and gotten a job as a gynecologist. You and your boyfriend, the baby’s father, [name]Stephen[/name], broke up eighteen months after the baby was born, but the two of you remain friendly and talk once a month or so. You learn he has recently gotten engaged. You are currently in-between guys, not sure of what to do with your freedom anymore. You feel as though something is missing in your life…then you find a small box of photographs and you remember what it is.
In the months following the birth of your child, [name]Aiden[/name], you kept up communication with the adoptive parents, [name]Noah[/name] and[name]Charlise[/name]. They sent you pictures once a month, along with detailed letters updating the baby’s progress. Mostly, these letters were from the father, as the mother recently got caught up in her latest project at work. You couldn’t help but feel a little attracted to the man. It bothered you so much that you confessed to your best friend, [name]Cate[/name], and your older sister, [name]Evelyn[/name], who warned you away from getting too close to a married man, even if that man is the adoptive father of your only child. You became upset, realizing what could potentially happen, and slowly began to distance yourself from your child and his/her adoptive parents.
Now that you are 26, you feel that you are certainly old enough to keep your hormones under control. You are about to call the adoptive parents when you realize you lost the contact information they gave you. And since it’s been so long, they could have relocated since then. You are about to give up until you are flipping through the newspaper one morning and a name catches your eye–in the obituaries. The woman who adopted your child, [name]Charlise[/name], is dead.
What did she die from? Homicide
A pack of dogs bit her and she die in the hospital.
You drive to Louisville to attend the wake at a local church. Dressed in all black, you mingle in the crowd of sad faces, looking for only one. Then, you see him, standing by the open coffin with three children. The oldest, who is 7 years old, your maternal instincts immediately recognize: it is your child, and he is crying, holding his younger siblings.
What is sibling #1’s gender? Girl
Sibling #1’s name: [name]Ella[/name] [name]Josephine[/name]
What is sibling #2’s gender? Girl
Sibling #2’s name: [name]Evelyn[/name] [name]Kya[/name]
You stay throughout the wake, hiding in the crowd, talking to random people. When they ask who you are, you say you are a friend of the family, too scared to admit the deceased was the woman who adopted your only child. You learn that the couple had adopted one other child after your own and the youngest was a miracle baby. As the event is about to end, you remember that you had brought yellow roses with you but left them in your car. You quickly run back with the bouquet and place it at the foot of the coffin, with a small note attached to it, thanking her for taking such good care of your child. You take one of the roses, however, and follow the line of mourners out the door. You see your child, [name]Aidan[/name], standing close to the door, trying to hide his face, clearly anxious to leave. You approach him, tap them on the shoulder. They look up at you with large, watery eyes; you yourself feel as though you want to cry. Neither of you speak. You hand them the rose, they silently accept it, kiss them on the forehead, and quietly leave.
[name]Charlize[/name] has been dead for six months. You still remember the encounter you had with your child at the wake. You have been debating back and forth about what to do, but have told no one, not even your best friend or older sister, that you went to the wake, and then sent anonymous flowers to the funeral. Should you call to let them know you were there, try to reconnect with them after you dropped off the face of the earth for no apparent reason? Or should you just forget about the whole thing, get on with your life, and allow them to move on in their grief?
[name]Fate[/name] decides for you.
What happens?
Your place of employment, Hospital, hosts a school function for children, educating them on possible future career pursuits. This amuses you and you volunteer to help set up hosting presentations for them. The day the children arrive, you are at the door with the event organizer and your boss, greet the students, teachers, and chaperones at the door. Your heart nearly stops when you recognize your child in the crowd–and he or she recognizes you. The two of you stare at each other and you are lost for words. As your child comes closer to you, he or she opens their mouth to speak, but they are interrupted by their friend excitedly walking beside them. He or she turns away from you and follows his or her class. Relieved, you exhale then walk quickly back to your office, ignoring a questioning glance from your boss.
You are willing to forget about the whole incident altogether. That is, until, two days later, the secretary comes knocking on your office door, announcing you have a visitor in the waiting room. You leave your work at your desk and head to the waiting room, thinking it might be your best friend, who is expecting her first child and frequently visits you. But it’s not your friend–it is a man you know very well: [name]Noah[/name] [name]Smith[/name].
He looks up from the magazine that he is reading to see you standing in the doorway. The two of you are alone, which you are grateful–you don’t know what to say or do, and you are uncertain of what he will say or do. He calmly puts the magazine down on the coffee table and stands up, then awkwardly smiles. He says you haven’t changed much in 7 years. You ask him how he found you. He says [name]Aidan[/name] told him about a woman who gave him a yellow rose at his wife’s wake, then the nameless flowers arrived a week later at the funeral. He thought it might be you. Turns out, he still talks to your child’s biological father, [name]Stephen[/name], and he said he had not heard from you in over a year. Then, two days ago, your child comes home and tells his dad they saw the woman again. He called your boss and asked if she had an employee by the name of [name]Elizabeth[/name] and his initial gut instinct was proven right. He took his day off from work to come in to see you, talk to you. He wants to know why you did not come forward.
You explain that you were afraid of upsetting him and [name]Aidan[/name], disrupting their lives even more than it already was. You were nervous that your child might not have known he or she was adopted. But you don’t tell him that you began to estrange yourself from their family not because you wanted to, but you felt as though you had to because you did not want to betray his sweet wife.
As he hugs you, [name]Noah[/name] says you would not have disrupted their lives at all and that [name]Aidan[/name] knows he is adopted. He asks if you would like to meet them. Teary-eyed, you gladly say yes.
