It still keeps me up at night

I can't sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I'm 16 again, just a couple months pregnant. I remember the evening I told my dad that I was keeping the baby. I had written out a letter to myself that has long since disappeared. The letter said pretty much everything we tell girls now. Adopters can lose jobs, get divorced, etc. And I will finish school and we will be fine. I told my father I was going to raise my baby. It should have been the last time adoption was ever mentioned. Instead, he said "so you mean I'm going to raise the baby."

I had an uncle willing to take me in. He can't do much, he told me, but he could offer a roof and food. Suddenly my father was open to the idea of keeping my daughter.

Until all of a sudden, he told me I better start looking into TANF and section 8. Because I wasn't coming home with that baby.

I remember worrying about whether my dad would ever see his grandbaby in my daughter, whether he would ever look at her and not see Daniel, and the months of lies that led to me getting pregnant. He said he didn't know either.

So, reluctantly, I picked up the phone book and dialed the first number I saw under adoption. I wasn't going to go through with it. I was just going to humor him.

Next thing I know, I have an appointment with an adoption "counselor " at my house. Then, I'm matched. Marine father. Sah mother. Living in Japan.

I convinced myself that this was what I wanted. I convinced myself that this was what God wanted. I actually remember saying to myself at one point "A stupid 16 year old girl needs a lesson. A couple on the other side of tthe world prays for a baby. Funny how the world works."

I want to go tell that girl "no. That's not how it works."

My dad was working when I had her. I was in the hospital a whopping 12 hours after her birth. I know if he'd have seen her, he would have told me not to go through with it. He would have told those people to get lost. I would still have my little girl.

But thats not what happened. Adad drove me home from the hospital. I walked into my house, stuffed bear under my arm. They went home with my baby. And it still keeps me up at night 5 years later.