I Am Alive: The Third Side of the Triangle

I Am Alive: The Third Side of the Triangle

  By Susan Steffen-Kraft

I will with what I say upset both Conservatives and Liberals, Republicans and Democrats! But this is my story! I will not apologize for being alive. My Mother was pregnant by the time she was 17 by an older man who was married. His wife was also pregnant! Would I be here if there had been easy access to abortions! I have never asked her but I will have to. The answer may not be the one I want to hear but I am glad I am alive as were the two people who became my parents and adopted me.

I always knew I was adopted as from the time they got me when I was a little over a month old.  My mother told me the same story every night. It was about a young lady that could not keep her baby and so she gave her up to some people that wanted a baby very badly. One day I asked her if that baby was me. She told me yes and that was that as I accepted it and have always maintained that this is a good way to tell a child they came to their parents in a different way.

My Mother came to college for a special Brunch and a few days later she wrote me a letter and in it was this paragraph.  "The Mother-Daughter Brunch will always be among my nicest memories. Thank You so much for being my daughter". Yes, Susan, God was answering my prayers all those eleven years. He was saying,  "Be patient, I have a little girl all picked out for you-but you must wait". "I'm so glad we waited."

My middle name is Joy, because I brought them Joy! She told me so! Would there have been Joy if I had been aborted! No! My father did not even want another man's child until he held me and then he did not want to let me go! So for all of you who believe in abortion, think long and hard.
The pictures below and the one above are of my parents. 

Now for the other side of the story! I was sexually molested for an entire year! I was just old enough (5th grade) I could have gotten pregnant! The body is not developed enough or the mind to handle this situation at all! Do you think if I had gotten pregnant that my parents should not have had the right to make the choice to whether or not to terminate the life I could have been carrying! At the risk of my life should they and the doctors not have been  able to make a decision to save me physically and mentally which may have meant termination of the pregnancy! 

You may well ask if I told anyone about this. In that time frame there were no counselors, no groups and no help. I would not even have known the words to describe what was happening. Thank God there is more help for children being molested in this day and age.

Both sides of this situation need to think long and hard before you answer. Either way my life would have been changed forever!  For most of you there is only your side of the Triangle. But wait, a triangle is three sided! The third side being the one you choose to ignore! I hope I do not stand alone on this!

There are other ideas and options. How about everyone pulling together to fight for adoptive parents to have an easier time to adopt! Less stringent rules, cheaper, and so on. And let us not forget that many children are stripped from their adoptive home due to the fact the Mother changes her mind or the father finds out and says "I did not know about the child!"

The child now 1-3 years old  is then taken from the loving adoptive parents and given to someone else.  This is wrong! I am glad my parents got to raise me. Rules need to be in play to protect the adoptive parents and the child. 

We should have more choices to offer pregnant mothers other than abortion and that they should raise the child even though they are many times one themselves. This creates less of a need for people to go overseas to adopt a child . And of course less children aborted and more couples are happy because they now have a child they wanted so badly.

Sadly it is all about I am right on both sides of this issue. No thought that there might be a third side to the triangle. We are playing with people's lives when we cannot look beyond our own selfish and I am right ideas! 

I read and saw pictures of a little girl in India that had two children and was just 13 years old. She was a baby herself and because of having them so young she was bleeding all the time.
The below is a link to this problem in India.  
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/child-brides/gorney-text/2

This is a different country and we cannot stop what happens there but we can stop what is happening to young children here if they get pregnant and are too young to be having babies physically! 

What do you do about a girl who is pregnant by her uncle? That is rape, incest, and endangerment of her life. Do we force her to carry that baby because the Pro Life group believe having an abortion is wrong. Wait until it happens to their 12 or 13 year old. Many of them will think different. 
Many of you who believe in abortions would have sacrificed a child like me for your own selfish reasons even though that child might contribute something to the world.

I have two wonderful children and two beautiful grandchildren! They would not be here if I were not! This is my story, I have lived it and I have no regrets for how I came into this world as it was not my fault. I am here, I am alive, and I have many people who love me! I am blessed!

Thank You to my biological mother for carrying me in her tummy and giving me up to the wonderful people who raised me and a Thank you to the mother who raised me for carrying me in her heart.

         
Not flesh of my flesh, 
         
Nor bone of my bone,
       
 But still miraculously

My own

Never forget
       
For a single minute;
                         
           You didn't grow under my heart
                                               
                                            But in it.