Brad Skow (BS) and Mary Lou Maher (MLM)

BS: Can you tell me about the day I was born?

MLM: The doctor took you away quickly because they had asked if I wanted to hold you and I said no, because I was afraid if I held you I wouldn’t be able to give you up. So they took you away crying and that was all I saw.

And they didn’t put me in the maternity ward cause they were afraid that’d be too hard for me, they just put me in the women’s ward. And I remember one of the nurses coming up after you were born and um, I was crying a lot, and she just came up and she just hugged me for a really long time, and she said Ya know it’s gonna be ok, it just takes time. And it took, I don’t know, about 5 years before I stopped thinking about you everyday and crying, to just thinking about you every week, to the point where it only happened once a month. But it still made me sad.

BS: So I have one more question and it’s the big one you’ve been waiting for.

MLM: Okay

BS: You now know, having lived through it, what the consequences of choosing to give me up are. So, knowing what you know now, would you do it again?

MLM: Well of course, knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t do it again. I remember I used to talk to you a lot when I was pregnant and explain the whole situation. Why I had to do this, that I wasn’t ready to be a mother. I didn’t have a father for you. I was really sure of myself – I remember that this was the best decision. Now, I wouldn’t even think about it because the separation and the loss is just way too hard. I mean, we have a relationship now and it’s great. You’ve sort of become part of the family. But I missed 20 years. And you can’t ever get that back.