Chatting with a priest

Last night we stayed after class to chat with one of the priests. In the course of telling him about my life and finding out answers to questions of what will be required of me as a new catholic I mentioned the fact that my baby was adopted by his stepmother after I sent him to live with his dad. His reply was that I obviously loved my son very much to do that.  Frankly that nearly made me speechless. I've heard a lot of questions about why I made that decision and of course there were those who flat out said that they would never do that under any circumstances. It was pretty cool that the priest, someone who doesn't have children, got it right off that parenting sometimes means sacrificing your desires for the good of the child.  He didn't ask me to explain or make comments that led me to feel I had to defend my decision. His easy acceptance and assumption of love really helped to put to rest the recent angst I've been having about it. It's nice to have his voice override the voice of my son's step mother who made a point of telling me that under no circumstances would she ever have given up her child. I guess sometimes I need that reminder that I'm not evil and selfish but a woman, a mother doing what I feel is best for my child. And there is nothing to apologize in that.