So often when we hear about adoption, the narrative implies that a child was simply given away until scooped up and given a second chance by a loving family. Although we might not necessarily assume the worst about the birth mother, we certainly don't focus on her much.
But the truth is, that's really where so many tragic and beautiful stories of adoption begin, and it's fair to say our assumptions are likely way off base.
Birth mom Hannah Mongie, 24, dramatically changed the narrative after she posted a now viral video of her message to her newborn son the evening before he was given to his adoptive family.
In the tearful video, Hannah tells her son Taggart "Tagg" Marsh, now 4, how much he is loved and wanted, and that this was the best decision for him.
"I was 18 years old and had just graduated high school a few months prior to finding out I was pregnant," Mongie tells CafeMom. "My entire life, I had always longed to be a wife and a mother. That was the only 'career' path I could envision for myself up until that point. I found out I was pregnant through the most unlikely of circumstances and the birth father and I talked together about what our options were. He was the first to bring up the idea of adoption because of where we both were at in our lives. Neither of us had a real job or very much schooling, and he told me that I should start thinking about what would be the best option, not for us, but for our child."
At first, Mongie admitted she was pretty "offended" by the idea.
There was no world in which she ever thought she could just give her child away.
"Not because it was heartless, but because I just didn’t think I could survive that kind of grief," she notes. "After some time of talking though, he and I both came to the conclusion that placing our son with another family would be the best decision for us."
Sadly, the birth father passed away a few months into Mongie's pregnancy. In her grief, she pushed the thought of adoption to the back of her mind.
"But over time, the feeling slowly sank back in that the choice that he and I had made together was still the right choice."
At seven months pregnant, Mongie found her son's forever family.
"I had been very picky up until that point about what kind of life and family I wanted for my son," she explains. "As soon as I found their profile, I was in tears and I ran around the house showing everyone in my family. I emailed Emily [Marsh] immediately and she responded right off the bat. From then on, we texted nonstop and ran out of questions within the first two days. My parents and I met Brad, Emily, and their oldest son the following week.
"As soon as Emily walked in, she gave me the biggest hug and it was as though she and I had known each other for so long already. She was SO easy to talk to and was very open about her communication, which in turn removed any fears that I had about having a rocky adoption. They were so willing to speak openly about everything, so nothing was left to be questioned. I told Brad and Emily within two weeks of meeting them that I wanted them to adopt my son. We hung out weekly up until Tagg’s birth."
Luckily, Mongie says that she and Emily bonded quickly.
In fact, she insists that their relationship to this day is as strong as ever.
"We visit anywhere between once a month, to multiple times per week, depending on what’s happening in our lives," she says. "I tell her about the boys that I am dating, and we just talk about everything in life. She is family to me, but has a specific role in my life that nobody else could replicate. I tell people all the time that I am SO grateful for Tagg, because without him, I would not have met Emily."
It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for Mongie, and it's something that she wants people to keep in mind when they think of birth mothers.
As she was so young, Mongie says she lost a lot of friends who were generally uncomfortable with her pregnancy because they were in different stages in their lives. Even though she says she did hear some "whisperings" about her choice to place Taggart, it was mostly adults who were practically (if not totally) strangers who tried to dissuade her.
"I had more adults than friends tell me that I should not place my child, mostly because they’d had a bad experience with it in some way or another," Mongie reveals. "A lot more random adults felt that they were entitled to an opinion about my life than I had anticipated. In the process of choosing to place my son, I had lost so many people in my life. I felt like I was offending everyone. Whether it was because 'I was giving away my child,' or because 'I wouldn’t give my child to them.'
"You’d be surprised at how many strangers would jump at the opportunity to ask if they can adopt your baby. And by saying no, I’d hurt their feelings, even though I did not know them at all. This whole process was the loneliest experience of my life because it was something I had to follow through with on my own."
What Mongie wants everyone to remember when it comes to birth moms is there are no two stories intrinsically alike.
She also says it's important to remember birth mothers for the most part are not always crazy or “deadbeats." They just want what is best for their child.
"Placing your child is not a heartless decision," she reassures us. "It is in fact one of the hardest things a parent will ever do. Open adoption may not only be receiving pictures and emails every once in a blue moon, but you can CHOOSE how open you want your adoption to be. In my case, we have the Marshes over for holiday family parties, we celebrate ALL of their kids’ birthdays (not just Tagg’s), and I have been able to babysit the boys and even take Tagg on dates with just the two of us, and sometimes we stop by just to hang out.
"Open adoption has such a wide spectrum, and you can have it be as open or as closed as you want, depending on what you and your child’s family would be comfortable with. The agreement on levels of openness is not a written agreement either. It is just something you talk through together and can be changed whenever, if needed."
After four years of coexisting with the Marsh family, Mongie says she wouldn't change a thing.
"I feel the same about my decision as I did all those years ago, but now I have less fear in my heart than I did back then," she tells CafeMom. "I’d had so many unanswered questions about what our adoption would look like and I didn’t know how it would all pan out, but I knew that it was what I had to do.
"Now, I have so many incredible memories to look back on with my son and his family. They have continued to allow me to love him as much as I did in the beginning. I am still not at a point in my life where I would physically be capable of raising a child, and I am always astounded to see how many opportunities that Tagg has that I would not have been able to give him."
Mongie says there isn't really a part of her that regrets her choices, but that doesn't mean there aren't still big feelings.
"There are 'mom' moments that I do wish I could have had on my own, but every time I fantasize about it, it wouldn’t include the Marshes, and that’s not a life that I want," she says matter of factly.
Overall, she wants people to hear her and Tagg's story and know that there is hope.
"I have seen and would hope that my story will continue to open the dialogue about open adoption and birth mothers, making it less of a taboo topic, and more about love," she says. "I want to remove some of the fear in talking about it, or in some cases following through with one’s own adoption plan.
"I am not ever going to say that adoption is best for everyone, but I would hope that the world could see and understand the potential that it can have. And I hope that birth mothers start getting the love and support that they deserve, because they have been shoved into a dark corner for far too long."
