A Birth Mother Shares An Emotional Message To Her Newborn Baby Right Before She Hands Him Over For Adoption
“I made this video so that you’d know how much I love you.”
Tomsickova Tatyana / Shutterstock Parting with a child is an impossible choice to make. However, for some parents, it is a reality that must be faced.
This was true for Hannah Mongie, a mother from Utah. Mongie chose to give her baby up for adoption after facing a series of heartwrenching circumstances.
The mother made a heartbreaking video for her son before giving him up for adoption.
Mongie had two days with her son before giving him up for adoption. In the final hour of the final day, she made a video as a message to him. The video has reached farther than Mongie could have ever imagined, now with over 3.5 million views on YouTube.
In the video, Mongie held her newborn son, Tagg, before he was placed with his adoptive family. “Right now, he’s 100% mine,” she said. Mongie said she preferred making a video rather than writing Tagg a letter, which would be more traditional, but less “in the moment.”
"I made this video so that you know how much I love you," she started. "I wanted to tell you why I made the decision to place you with your family."
Mongie continued the video by explaining the heartbreaking loss of her boyfriend. After dating for a while, they found out she was pregnant, and were both ecstatic. Unfortunately, soon after Mongie’s eight-week appointment, her boyfriend passed away. “Two days after he heard your heartbeat, his heart stopped,” she told Tagg.
“From the day your daddy died, I had a hard time even considering placing you with a different family when you were my last piece of [him],” Mongie said. “One day I woke up and I just knew that you were supposed to be with someone else.”
Ultimately, she made the difficult decision to place Tagg up for adoption.
She thought she had found the right family before they told her another birth mother had chosen them. After her original plans fell through, Mongie found another family on Adoption.com and “fell in love with them.”
"They were beyond anything I could have asked for and I have really really high standards for anyone who is going to raise my child," she shared. Since she chose them as her son’s adoptive parents, she became incredibly close with them. “She’s one of my best friends now,” Mongie said of Tagg’s adoptive mother.
Mongie sat holding her son’s hand, talking to him through tears. “The entire pregnancy, all I was waiting for was just these two days I could spend with you,” she told him. “I just want you to know that I really, really love you so much.”
Photo: fizkes / Shutterstock
While Mongie may have felt a sense of loneliness as she made her difficult choice, she was far from alone.
The University of Oregon has collected some interesting statistics regarding adoption. They stated, “Approximately 5 million Americans alive today are adoptees, 2-4 percent of all families have adopted, and 2.5 percent of all children under 18 are adopted.”
Although it is more visible than ever, adoption has actually been on the decline for several decades now. However, these statistics show that adoption is still far from uncommon.
There is one thing Mongie wants people to take away from her video. “I hope anyone who watches this will be able to gain a new perspective on what the birth mom goes through when she places her child for adoption,” she wrote in the caption of the video. “It is the farthest thing from a heartless act. It shows [the] definition of love. To love someone this much is to give away your happiness for them.”
For Mongie, it all came down to her love for Tagg. “I made this decision purely out of love because I knew I couldn’t give you what I knew you needed, which is a mommy and a daddy,” she said to him.
Thankfully, this wasn’t goodbye forever, as it was an open adoption and Mongie is able to remain in contact with her son. “I get to see him all the time thanks to his wonderful mommy and daddy,” she shared in the caption of her video.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news and human interest topics.