"It was completely her choice to have the baby adopted, she had another option she chose not to take. That decision has affected quite a few people’s lives, and not in a good way."
Conversely, my grandmother chose - in 1951, as a single mother - to keep my mother, with the additional support of her parents. My mother was essentially raised by her grandparents until she was 6 and my grandmother married my (adopted) grandfather. Because, here's the kicker - not only is my grandmother my mother's biological mother, she's also her adoptive mother. Yet in all my mother's almost 70 years of life, not once has my grandmother told her the truth about who her father was. And that has damaged my mother considerably. She was, by all accounts, a rebellious teenager who had a baby at 14 and another at 17. Both of my older brothers were raised by my grandparents, from birth. My oldest brother has no idea who his biological father may be/have been, as our mother refuses point blank to divulge. She says (and this is one of the main reasons DB1 went NC with her as soon as I turned 18) that as my grandmother refused to tell her who her biological father was, why should he need to know anything about his?
DB2 traced his biological father when he was old enough to do so, because my grandfather helped him. Turned out that he and mother were engaged to be married, until she suddenly broke it off and hooked up with a pilot in the RAF when DB2 was maybe 2 or 3 years old. Childhood sweethearts, if you will. He'd known about DB2, but didn't want the aggravation which he surmised would occur, and hurt both of my brothers, if he stuck around. DB2 has 4 more half-siblings littered around the country, whom as far as I know, he doesn't have any relationship with and may actually, not even know about his existence.
And then... a few years ago, I was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease which will, one day, carry me off this mortal coil. It also happens to be somewhat genetic (although random mutations obviously can occur) and... a known "family friend" also had it. Said "family friend" was always in my mother's life - there are photographs of him, my grandmother, and my mother as a baby and small child, on day trips to the beach in the summer, and playing catch in my great-grandparents garden. Happy fucking families, right? Except... "family friend" (whom my mother resembles more and more the older she gets, and whom I can see in my son's face as he matures) was almost 30 when my mother was born, married, and the father of 3 children. Even when faced with the information that I have this genetic disease, and oh!, look, "family friend" also had it...!!!, my grandmother holds her tongue. It's no matter to her if she tells us whether he actually is my biological grandfather, or not. He's been dead for over 20 years, his wife is deceased, and as far as my brothers and I're concerned, the man she married was very much our adored grandfather. But medically, we do need to know if this is where my condition stemmed from, because all three of us have children and DB2 has grandchildren (although we're erring on the side of caution), and DB1 would like to know if his son is best friend's with an actual family member, not just "family friend"'s great-grandson. We're all pretty certain that "family friend"'s children wouldn't have known about our mother - and that they still don't. But it's weird for DB1 to be friends with, to know his son is best friends with, people who may well be our cousins. I can understand that. I can empathise with that.
My mother has no compassion, no empathy, no structure to her comprehension of how a family ought to be. I had to train her to say "I love you" 10 years ago - when I was 34. Until then? Growing up? It wasn't uttered by her, or by my grandmother to either me, or my brothers. DB1 has come to terms - he claims - with the fact that he probably won't ever know who his biological father was. He suspects, given some of the gleeful stories our mother has always told about her exploits growing up, that it's possible that she doesn't know his identity, herself. Which is pretty awful, if you stop and realise that... had my grandmother placed her for adoption, or said "yes, 'family friend' is your father, but we can't tell his wife" at some point to her, it would have given her the identity that I suspect she was trying to obtain as a wild, rebellious teenage girl in a small village in the depths of rural countryside. If, in turn, she'd said to either of my brothers "these are your biological fathers", they perhaps might still be in contact with her, and I wouldn't be the only one left manning the fortress. My mother is bitter and angry - and that, I believe, comes from the fact that her own mother maintains a facade of "oops, suddenly I had a belly-ache and there you were..." about the whole thing. She didn't tell anyone that she was pregnant with my mother until she was giving birth... but she must have known. She is a highly intelligent, sharp, manipulative woman now, in her 90s... and she was, by all accounts, the same back then. Perhaps if she'd told the truth, my mother would have known to watch us for symptoms of the disease which killed the "family friend" (the children of his wife and their descendants are all asymptomatic, thankfully - so it may even just be a genetic quirk) and I could have done something about managing it, before it was too late to do so.
All because my grandmother made a choice against adoption.