Am I Broken Three Weeks Post Placement?
Written by Mikayla Ryan
The last nine months of my life have been spent living with someone else’s best interests at heart. What I ate. What I drank. What medicines I took. If I napped during the day or not. I did it all for my birth son. Every thought. Every decision. Every action. Every word. All for him. Then three weeks ago, my sweet birth son finally decided that he wanted to come to the world and say “Hello! Here I am!” His papers are signed. My parental rights are gone. He is in his everyday mommy and daddy’s arms… So I now have time to wonder, what about me? Who wants this broken girl? How do I achieve my dreams? Do I deserve to achieve my dreams? Do I even know what my dreams are? Do I even know who Mikayla Ryan is?
Contemplating a little longer, I realized that my pseudo dreams and identity were removed when my C section was performed. All that was left was this shell and a side of me that I had never met before. What I really wanted. Who I really am. Not what anyone decided I should be. I found that I am strong and I am not just some broken girl. I am a strong woman. A selfless woman who was able to fight my maternal instincts and put my baby’s best interests at heart.
Pondering my life a little more, I realized, I am not broken. I am just changing from one phase of my life to another. I am going from Mikayla Ryan, the girl whose biggest aspiration was to find someone else to complete her, tell her how to run her life, and allow her to take care of them. To Mikayla Ryan, the woman who is an accomplished blogger; a pretty good, amateur photographer; hopes to one day be a social worker; and is focusing on herself first. I am not giving up on finding someone, I am trying to be the woman that the kind of man that I want would be attracted to. But, the thing that I am most proud of is being a mother.