I was seventeen when I gave birth to a daughter, and I placed her for adoption on the very same day. It was early February, a Friday morning, and she weighed seven pounds, two ounces, a perfect little bundle of life that I would only hold for eleven minutes. I counted every second, memorizing her tiny fingers pressed against my chest, the delicate warmth of her body, the way her soft breaths rose and fell, already feeling impossibly precious. Those eleven minutes were a lifetime condensed into seconds, a moment I knew I would never get back.

My parents waited outside, and the decision had been made before I even had a chance to speak. They told me that she deserved more than a teenage mother with no money, no stability, no future. They said keeping her would be selfish. I was too scared, too young, too emotionally shattered to resist. I walked out of that hospital room with empty arms, and the memory of her tiny body against mine stayed with me for fifteen long years, following me like a shadow that refused to fade.