I Placed My Black Son For Adoption After Rape — His Memoir, ‘Stranger In My Own Story,’ Helped Me Reclaim Mine [Op-Ed]
Adoption was not only my decision. It was my inheritance—the outcome of shame and trauma. Survival. Loss of connection to self and truth. Running. Avoiding vulnerability at all costs. The post I Placed My Black Son For Adoption After Rape — His Memoir, ‘Stranger In My Own Story,’ Helped Me Reclaim Mine [Op-Ed] appeared first on MadameNoire.
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Clinic after clinic told me it was too late to have an abortion.
I was four months pregnant, 23 years old, living in Atlanta in the fall of 1986. When the last door closed, I did the only thing I had ever been taught to do with something that hurt. I got quiet. Silence and shame consumed my body.
Hiding my growing belly became my only goal. Day after day, I threw on oversized clothes, praying my roommates and co-workers wouldn’t notice and wouldn’t ask. I never once considered telling my mother.
My son was conceived by rape. By who? A colleague. A friend. Or so I thought. All I knew was that I could not—would not—keep the baby.
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The post I Placed My Black Son For Adoption After Rape — His Memoir, ‘Stranger In My Own Story,’ Helped Me Reclaim Mine [Op-Ed] appeared first on MadameNoire.
