Maternal decision to place her birth son in adoption has been life-giving for him, his adoptive family and her own family, mother says.
Dominique White is shown with her husband and first child. (photo: Courtesy of Dominique White)
By Susan Klemond Culture of Life
Published November 15, 2024 in the National Catholic Register
When Dominique White went to a Texas Planned Parenthood after discovering she was pregnant at 17, a staff person told her that she had two options: either abort her child or raise him herself.
Believing that these were her only choices, she decided with the encouragement of her family to raise her eldest son as a single parent.
Several years later, White found herself in another unintended pregnancy, but learned that she had a third option in private adoption, which wasn’t an “undesirable last resort” but a way that gave her power to give her son a good future.
Since she chose to place her birth son from her second unplanned pregnancy in open adoption in 2016, White has been in regular contact with his adoptive family, and he and his older half-brother share a close relationship, said White, now 29, who lives in the Austin, Texas, area.
During both of her unintended pregnancies, abortion initially had seemed like the obvious choice, White said.
“It almost felt like that was what had been taught to us, and I can’t tell you where that had been taught to me,” she said. “It just seemed like that was the norm, like I’m young and I’m pregnant, so I should get an abortion.”
When she was pregnant the first time, White’s mother didn’t oppose her getting an abortion and revealed that she herself had had had several before White was born.
But White’s twin sisters vehemently opposed her aborting the baby and told her they’d help her raise him. The sisters and some of her friends helped her care for the baby, who is now 11, as she finished high school.
“If you’ve ever seen [the 1987 film] Three Men and a Baby, it was like that,” she said, ”three girls and a baby and ‘we’ll figure this out.’”
A few years later, one of White’s sisters invited her to a young-adult prayer meeting at a large, nondenominational church in Dallas; she connected at the prayer meeting with a leader with whom she kept in contact.
Though White and her sisters had been baptized Catholic and sometimes attended a Boston Catholic church before the family moved to the Dallas area when she was 8, she experienced a spiritual awakening at the Dallas church.
After a 2016 spring-break trip, White suspected she might be pregnant and requested a pregnancy test at an abortion facility. Her suspicion was confirmed, and she scheduled an abortion. She remembered crying in her car at a red light on the way home. “I had felt like, I just had no one to turn to.”
Too embarrassed to tell her family about another unintended pregnancy, she tried to hide it. White texted her church’s young-adult ministry leader but didn’t follow up with her. She argued with her boyfriend about the baby’s paternity and put off getting the abortion because she couldn’t pay for it.
White said she didn’t want to be pregnant and instead wanted to continue partying. She reached out again to the ministry leader a few months later and told her the entire story. The leader told White about a woman she knew who couldn’t have children after having an abortion and was interested in adopting her child.
“That was very shocking to me,” White said. “I was like, ‘Absolutely not; that is crazy. I’m not a bad mom. Why would you think that? I’m not on drugs or anything. I just don’t want to be pregnant.’ I’m different from those women that I was categorizing in my mind, or the stigma around that.”
Feeling judged, White returned to the abortion business when she was about eight weeks into her pregnancy. “I just could not do it,” she said. “It did something in me,” said White, who starting wondering what actually happened during an abortion procedure.
The videos she watched about abortion procedures raised fear and anxiety about possible trauma and infertility, confirming her decision not to have one.
But parenting two children alone didn’t seem like the right option either. White said she feared she’d be judged for raising two children as a single parent and that she’d never finish college or have a career.
“I think single parenting is also made to look very bad in our society,” White said. “If you’re a single parent, a mom with one kid and the dad’s nowhere to be found, shame on you.”
Still unsure about what to do, White continued to confide in her ministry friend who told her God offered her redemption. The friend also encouraged her to consider adoption, sharing more about the woman and her family who wanted to adopt her baby.
White decided to do more research, this time on private adoption. She discovered that her perception of adoption wasn’t accurate.
“My concept of adoption was foster care,” she said. “I didn’t know that adoption agencies existed or that you could pick a family. I had no idea … so I just thought it meant you’re a bad mom.”
White studied adoptive couple profiles she found on adoption agency websites and also met the couple her ministry friend told her about.
“I got to know them and all their messiness and how God has restored their lives, and that just felt really refreshing,” White said of the couple, then in their early 30s, who attended the same church. “It didn’t make me feel like they were these perfect chosen people that the government deemed better parents than me. They were just like me, broken.”
White decided to place the baby with the couple, and they drew up an agreement through an adoption agency.
White’s older son was aware of her pregnancy but when the baby didn’t come home from the hospital, he was confused, she said. Although her post-placement therapy was part of the adoption agreement, she said she doesn’t think the adoption agency adequately reimbursed her for it, nor did the agency offer any reimbursement for the therapy her son needed.
It also failed to fully explain to White the difference between open and closed adoption, she said. For more than a month after the birth, she chose not to have contact with the baby or adoptive parents until the couple convinced her to open contact.
Since then, White said she and her older son have regular contact with her birth son, who turns 8 later this month, and his adoptive family.
For three years after the adoption, the Dallas church community that White and the adoptive family belonged to continued to care for her and her son, including providing a place to live and a car, she said.
White got married in February; and though she and her family now live in Austin, Texas — 200 miles away from her birth son and his adoptive family — they work to maintain their relationships and keep the boys in contact.
“They adore every second together,” White said. “They really miss each other when they’re not with each other.”
Looking back, White said her unintended pregnancies were crises that at times seemed like “doomsday,” she said.
All the options were challenging, but her decision to place her birth son in adoption has been life-giving for him, his adoptive family and her own family, White said.
“You see no light at the end of the tunnel, and then you find out that actually you can pick a family and … it becomes hopeful,” she said. “There’s a little bit of light shining through the cracks of this broken glass, and you start to see hope that there may be something on the other side of this.”
LEARN MORE
Birth parents have considerable control in adoption process.
Private adoption is considered by many to be complex and time-consuming — and for adoptive parents, the vetting process, primarily to protect children, is rigorous, according to Terri Marcroft, founder of Unplanned Good, a Boise, Idaho-based nonprofit that promotes mainly private adoption.
But for birth parents, the process is fairly straightforward and gives them a lot of control, adoption experts say.
Many of the steps below appear in a video for women considering adoption produced by BraveLove, a Dallas-based nonprofit that challenge adoption stigmas and supports birth mothers.
1. Talk to an adoption professional, either at an adoption agency or law firm. Attorneys consulted should have adoption experience.
2. With the agency or attorney, develop a plan considering: the type of family preferred, how to choose one; the level of contact preferred with the child and adoptive family; the role of the baby’s father and his legal right; what the paperwork and legal terms mean; preferences for the delivery/hospital stay; and managing grief and moving forward after the adoption.
3. Choose an adoptive family from agency or attorney’s profiles.
4. If possible, talk to another birth mother who’s placed a child for adoption.
5. After the birth, an entrustment ceremony with clergy present, prayers, etc., present at the passing of the child to the adoptive parents may help with the transition.
6. Prepare to sign the adoption papers, understanding that making the legal decision permanent will likely be emotional.
7. Arrange support for after the adoption, through therapy (the expense should be included in the agreement), or by connecting with other birth mothers.
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Susan Klemond Susan Klemond is a freelance writer living in West St. Paul, Minnesota, who writes news and feature articles for the Register, OSV Newsweekly and The Catholic Spirit, the archdiocesan paper for St. Paul-Minneapolis. She also has worked in marketing, editing and magazine production.