Laura gave up her baby: 'We wanted as much safety and stability as possible for her'

Laura (center) gave up her daughter for adoption three years ago. On the left Mariëlle Kappert, on the right Nicolette Sprenger, rescuers from the Fiom. Statue Maikel Samuels

On average, about 20 women a year give up their child for adoption. One of them tells why she chose this.

Petra VissersSeptember 13, 2022 , 09:45

Anyway, her daughter had to grow up 'safe, stable and steady'. “That is the most important thing for a child's development,” says Laura (24) firmly. So three years ago she gave her girl up for adoption. “I immediately knew: we will not be able to raise her.”

Laura, a tall slender twenties with brown curls, was living with her anti-squat boyfriend four years ago when she turned out to be pregnant. “We had already been told that we had to get out of that house,” she says. “Our lives were restless, we both struggled with our own traumas.”

'I turned out to be 27 weeks pregnant'

Because of that turmoil, and because Laura's cycle had always been irregular, it took her a long time to realize she might be pregnant. “When I finally got up the courage to go to the doctor and take a pregnancy test, I turned out to be 27 weeks pregnant.”

Laura is a slim woman, but she hasn't had a baby bump in all that time. No one around her had seen her, and once she found out she was pregnant, she and her boyfriend didn't tell family. “I just put on a bit of a wide sweater,” she says. “I only had maternity pants like this for the last three weeks.”

Laura is no exception, say aid workers Nicolette Sprenger and Mariëlle Kappert of Fiom, the organization that guides women who are unintentionally pregnant. “There is so much stigma around this,” Kappert says. “While it happens to many women. There can be many reasons why a woman finds out she is pregnant late.”

null Statue Maikel Samuels

Statue Maikel Samuels

Convinced of a better life in another family

Figures that Fiom will publish in the autumn show that since 2015 (the year in which the organization started keeping figures) an average of twenty women in the Netherlands have given up their child for adoption. An average of 40 more women consider this, but ultimately choose not to. The majority ultimately raise the child themselves, while others opt for placement in a foster family.

The figures show that the group that opts for 'distance for adoption' (as it is officially called) is diverse. Just over half were single, a third were married or cohabiting. Four out of ten women already had a child, half are open about the pregnancy and the choice of distance for adoption, the other half do not tell anyone or only their loved ones.

The common denominator is that almost all women (97 percent) choose adoption because they are convinced that their child will have a better life in another family.

Crying and talking

Laura and her boyfriend consciously chose not to be placed in a foster family. “My boyfriend and I wanted as much stability and security for her as possible.” They considered it a risk that a family can always stop fostering, meaning that a child has to move.

Laura talks calmly and deliberately about her decision. She is sure it was the right one for her daughter. “But I wasn't very calm at first, you know. My boyfriend and I used to cry and talk until three in the morning. I have worked through a lot of emotions.”

Sprenger, who accompanied Laura and her boyfriend through the pregnancy and beyond, speaks with admiration about how the couple handled the choices they had to make. “They were soon able to talk calmly and deliberately about what they thought was important for their child,” she says. “That is quite exceptional.”

In the past, women were generally little or not involved at all in the adoption process, now a mother can make many choices for the future of her baby. “At first I thought: let her adoptive parents think of everything”, says Laura. "I didn't want to have too much to do with it."

'There's your sister's belly mama'

But over the weeks, and after many conversations with Sprenger, Laura said she started to think "more lovingly" about it. So she and her boyfriend eventually chose the girl's name, and they gave a number of wishes for the family that would adopt their daughter.

“For example, we wanted a family that was open to a brother or sister, because my friend missed that very much as an only child. It turned out that she now has an older sister.” Laura also indicated that she would like to have some form of contact. So every year she now receives photos and a letter about the girl via Fiom and sends a letter back.

“I also met the family,” she says. “I thought that was exciting, but it went much smoother than I expected. I got such a warm feeling from that. Her older sister was also with her and then the mother said: 'Look, there's your sister's belly mama'. That gave me so much peace. I think of that family as family.”

Even though Laura gave up her daughter for adoption, the girl shapes her life and the choices she makes. “What if she contacts me in ten years and wants to get to know me? Then I want to be able to say: I was not able to give you what you needed then. But now I've put everything in order and I've moved on in life."

Laura's full name is known to the editors.

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