As a seventeen-year old in the middle of a crisis pregnancy, I did not choose options number 1, 2 or 4. The back alley abortion idea never sounded good. My mother had arranged a place for me at a Salvation Army home for unwed mothers where I would be cared for and my child would be placed for adoption, but that route didn't work for me at the time. Having the baby, living with Mom and finding my bootstraps had a certain appeal, although my step-father would not make life easy or pleasant. Surprisingly, my partner in the horizontal bop that resulted in my bump married me.

Lucky me.

There was no 'virtual' reality in 1969, but it makes sense now to refer to a 'virtual' shotgun at my wedding. Groom? Not happy. My maid of honor was my best friend ...pregnant by my new hubby's best friend, not the marrying kind ... also not happy. My mother? Not happy. My father? Not happy. A raft of in-laws? Ditto.

And me? I couldn't stop laughing. I laughed so hard the rent-a-preacher-guy reprimanded me from his plywood pulpit. (I'm funny this way ... pain makes me laugh. Smash my thumb with a hammer, bang my head on a beam, stub my toe on a chunk of coral, and I'm yuckin' it up like the bald guy in the front row at a Don Rickles performance.) Six months later, I'm in labor, hubby's off getting stoned with his friends, Mom's waiting in the corridor.

Given that it now appears every decision made can and should be checked for its own rightness, second-guessed and corrected if found faulty in any way, I must be entitled to do some sort of digging to learn if I made a serious mistake by not placing my daughter for adoption. Would the life she'd have had growing up in a cohesive and more affluent adoptive family given her substantially more than I could give? Did keeping her to myself her rob her of possibilities for happiness and success, being that I was unable to provide so much in the way of security and comforts and was too young, too inexperienced and too tired to be any more than merely adequate as a parent? How much of a handicap was it for her growing up with a youngster who was financially strapped no matter the long hours worked, showed up at school open houses looking more like a sister than a mother, dated losers, sometimes drank too much, and went through bouts of loneliness that made her a misery to be around? Did having ratty cars and tatty furniture take a toll on my little girl? How much residue does she suffer from years of barely making it through a month with lights and heat and food and fuel?

Perhaps I can find a way to contact potential adoptive parents from the time, maybe even narrow down possibles until I have just a couple of couples who may have taken my daughter, find if they did actually adopt a girl, then compare that woman's life thirty-seven years later to my daughter's. Maybe it's not too late for her to develop a relationship with these parents-that-might-have-been, to get some of that love they would have showered her with as a child. They could get in on the grandparent stuff now, too, as my daughter is a mother. After all, should anyone miss out on anything because of decision made thirty-six years ago? Don't we all get to have it all?

Seems only fair.