the day I gave birth to my son

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Talking to my friend the other day about Bonny Ebby, an adopting mother I've be-friended, I realized how unique and almost strange it sounded. My friend replied to me, "I just don't understand how you could do that. "My friend, you see, was there with me the day I gave birth to my son. She sat beside me the day I relinquished my rights in court. She held my hand as I walked from the agency on the day I last saw my son. She also cried with me when the open adoption I'd asked for turned out to be very closed. She listens to my despair and keeps my tears as the years pass by and I long to hear how my son is.

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So when I told her about Bonny Ebby and the relationship we'd forged, my friend could not begin to comprehend it. My friend knew well the pain I lived with and the betrayal that haunted me. She has seen first-hand my sorrow at loosing my first born child. She has watched my rage when I fight to understand why my son's parents walked away without looking back. And when I told her how wonderful Bonny is and how I want to help her adopt, my friend has nothing to say except, "How can you have compassion for an adoptive couple when the one adoptive couple you put your trust in, failed you? "

And then I hear Bonny's voice within my thoughts, "Oh Courtney, " she whispers, "I am so sorry for you. "

Bonny Ebby had a tough childhood. So hard in fact, that at a young age she chose to have a tubal libation. But years later she discovered her faith in God and married a wonderful Christian man, Andrew. Together, they found love and Bonny's life began to change. With that change, the desire to have a family became real. But Bonny could not have children of her own.

Bonny first knew of me when she came across an article I'd written called, "The Letter. " I wrote it to help adopting couples understand the true purpose of a dear birth mother letter, and what birth mothers really read and hear in them. After she read the article, Bonny contacted me. (Link to my e-mail response here)

After several drafts and correspondence, Bonny and Andrew finished their letter. (Link to their letter here)Where most of the adoptive couples I've helped offer their thanks and move on ... Bonny did not. She continued to write to me. She then, knowing I would not accept any financial reward for helping her, offered to design a web page for me. I received a package in the mail from her a week later, as she told me she would send me a pamphlet of theme's to choose from. But inside the package, along with the book were other things. Pictures, a letter, stickers, and hand-made crocheted hair bands for my six-year-old daughter. I nearly cried. This woman truly cared about me. I felt overwhelmed with gratitude for our friendship. She, even without intending to do so, was slowly healing the wounds left from my son's adoptive parents.

Through a maze of forging a new and un-known ground of friendship we supported one another by e-mail, chat, and telephone conversations. We prayed for one another and shouted for joy in our successes. Though neither of us know how such a friendship, between birthmother and adoptive parent is possible, we have watched it grow into something truly amazing.

Bonny has been selected by a birth mother who is due in less than nine weeks. The phone call I received from her that day still exists in my mind. Her laughter, her praise, her thanks to God, and her thought to call me ...all are proof that we have bridged the gap between birthmother and adoptive mother and discovered something undeniably precious.

Bonny and I do not expect anything from the other. We are not friends because one of us has something to gain. We were brought together because of our pain and our need for healing, and through it we found hope in what each of us doubted. I had lost my faith in adopting parents, and Bonny was afraid of birthmother's. Now each of us, through tears and prayer and friendship ... have given the other the gift of hope once more.

I am filled with a joy un-like any other knowing that Bonny respects and understands birth mothers. She will not act in fear or judgment, but with understanding and compassion. And now, when I write or speak with adoptive parents, I can help them with a pure heart.

Bonny and I wanted to share our story publicly with the hope that other adopting couples and experienced birth mothers will feel compelled to reach out as well. Society needs to be informed about adoption, but the truest and best way to re-form and positively change adoption begins with those involved directly in it.

I've read countless adoption books in the attempt to understand adopting parents and what they are going through. As a birthmother I knew everything there was to know about the experience. But in just two weeks of getting to know Bonny, I learned more than any book ever could have taught me or what I thought I knew myself.

And one day it is our hope that I will stand beside her at the dedication of her first child, and that God willing, she will be there when I hold my son again.

'It is better to live knowing the truth ... than to live in fear of it. " - Courtney Frey

"There is no greater love than that of a child and its mother ... than that of a child and two mothers. " - Courtney Frey

"You see things that are and say, "Why? "But we dreamt things that never were and said, "Why not? " - George Bernard Shaw

"Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is? " - Anonymous

"Coming together is beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. " - Henry Ford