Michelle Kleszynski-Mickelsen is thirty-six years old and originally from Chicago. She currently resides in Kenosha, Wisconsin with her two children, ages eleven and sixteen years old. Michelle is also a birth mother of one sweet boy who just turned three years old in August of this year!

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In 2014, at the age of thirty-three, Michelle found herself pregnant from an abusive boyfriend she had been in a relationship with for a long time. She and her kids broke free from the abusive relationship when her boyfriend - the birth father - went to jail. But even though Michelle and her children were free from further abuse, Michelle was faced with a very difficult decision now that she was pregnant again.

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On February 26, 2014, Michelle had a doctor’s appointment. It was that appointment that saved Michelle from walking into a Milwaukee abortion center and having an abortion. She knew she could not be a single mom to three children.  Even though she was confident that she was a good mom, she was also struggling financially. She felt she could love her child just as much as she loves her two other children, but that love would not be enough because of her situation. Michelle thought a lot about abortion, even though her Catholic faith taught her otherwise on the option of abortion. She thought abortion would just make everything "go away," and she would be able to move on as if nothing had ever happened.

 

Michelle, then, researched the option of open adoption, and if that option would be a good fit for her and her family. And after having an ultrasound when she was ten weeks gestation - Seeing that her son had two arms, two legs, and a heartbeat, she realized that he was, in fact, a human being! Still scared to death, she ended up choosing the option of open adoption, having no idea what she was about to get herself into.

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Today, Michelle feels that she has the most amazing open adoption relationship with her birth son and his parents. She explains, "Even though it was the hardest decision I have ever had to make, it was also the best decision for my birth son." She and her older children have communication with her birth son’s adoptive family almost three to five times a week depending on everyone's schedules, too. She visits her birth son and his parents, annually, during her work trips, and plans to visit them again next year with her older children since they have not seen their birth brother since his birth in the hospital. 

 

Michelle conveys, in relation to her choice of adoption, "We became a family, not because we share the same genes, but because we share love for one another." After placing her son in an open adoption, and having a much contested adoption by the birth father, she went on to finish her Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management, and married the love of her life at the end of 2015. Michelle runs a birth mom-focused Facebook support page for birth mother’s affected by independent adoption agency’s who unexpected close. She also blogs about her life and adoption journey at Reflectionshealingmotivationrecoverysurviving.com.