The Ripple Effect: How a woman embraced life and changed my world

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this guest post are solely those of the author.

Kim Bok-Soon, a woman I will probably never meet, changed my life in an immeasurable way. 

When you think of people who change the world, who comes to mind?

Perhaps politicians whose signatures alter the course of history. A pioneering physician whose discovery saves millions of lives. An inventor, philanthropist, or entrepreneur whose ideas reshape society. Maybe a musician or actor whose work has brought joy through their art.

Kim Bok-Soon is none of these things. No, she is “just” the woman who gave birth to my husband.

My husband’s birthmother almost seems a caricature of the woman abortion advocates say desperately needs access to “reproductive healthcare”, a euphemistic way to say, “needs to end the life of her unborn child.” 

An unplanned pregnancy in South Korea

She grew up in a rural South Korea, as the only daughter among six children. She fell in love with a young man in the area. The only name I have for him is Lee, his family name, which was passed onto my husband and remains as one of his middle names. He was the oldest son in another large family. 

Bok-Soon and Lee had been dating for a couple years when her father had a stroke. She was in high school at the time and dropped out to help take care of her father and work to make up for his lost income. When she was 20, Bok-Soon found herself unexpectedly pregnant. 

I have no way of knowing this for certain, but Korean friends have shared some cultural context with me of why a years-long relationship did not find marriage as the answer to my husband’s unplanned-for existence. Being the eldest son and in college at the time, that position came with a level of prestige that would have made his family very unfavorable to the prospect of him marrying “down”. 

Bok-Soon moved to the city and got a job there to hide her pregnancy from her family. This isn’t uncommon in South Korea, where being a single mother is much more taboo and life-altering than it is in the United States. The social stigma surrounding unmarried motherhood in South Korea was, and remains, severe. Her family probably would’ve disowned her. She likely would have lost her job. Finding housing as a single mother would have been extraordinarily difficult. Marriage prospects would have been slim to non-existent.

I’m sure she held on to the hope that Lee would do right by her and marry her.

Instead, when she was seven months pregnant, he chose that "convenient" moment to begin his mandatory military service. Because he was in college, he could have postponed it until graduation.

Choosing life and adoption

I can’t imagine the devastation she felt. They had created this child together, yet she alone was left to bear the consequences.

So here she stood: poor, undereducated, abandoned by the father of her child, with no family or societal support.

And she still chose life.

Bok-Soon made the painful decision to place my husband up for adoption. Besides the priceless gift of my husband, she gave us the gift of giving birth in a hospital, legally relinquishing him, and leaving all the details I just shared with you. No secret at-home birth with my husband in a basket on a street corner. 

Little Lee Sung Soo came into the world, Bok-Soon stayed in the hospital with him for 4 days, and then she said goodbye

I don't know whether she gave him his name, but Sung Soo comes from Chinese characters meaning "accomplish" and "protect."

He’s AJ now, but every time I look at our three children’s features and see something that I don’t recognize looking at my husband’s face or mine, I wonder about Lee and Kim Bok-Soon. 

I think about the brave decision she made and then recommitted herself to every day that followed.

If the wrong person would’ve spoken into her life while she was pregnant, would my husband exist? 

Would I have met the love of my life? 

Would that love have produced our three gorgeous children? 

Ripples across generations

My husband has served in the United States Navy for eighteen years, supporting and defending the Constitution and leading sailors as a Chief Petty Officer. He has influenced countless lives through his leadership, his integrity, and with his infectious smile and eyes that twinkle with mirth. The world would be a different place without him.

You could argue that he is only one man among billions.

You would be right.

But he is also a masterpiece of God’s handiwork, a unique genetic code that has never existed before and will never exist again from the moment that Bok-Soon and Lee came together to create him. 

The small pebble that Bok-Soon figuratively threw into the water when she chose life for her son continues to send ripples across generations.

As Maximus said in "Gladiator": "What we do in life echoes in eternity."

(I couldn't write about my husband without sneaking in a Gladiator quote.)

I thank God every day for my husband, and I hope that one day I can thank my Korean mother-in-law in person.

The impact of one story like my husband’s is impossible to quantify amongst all the heart-rending statistics about abortion.

According to the World Health Organization, 73 million babies are aborted worldwide every year. In the United States, about 1 out of 3 pregnancies ends in abortion. 

What we cannot calculate are the friendships never formed, the courage never displayed, the wisdom never shared, the songs never sung, and the quiet acts of kindness that never ripple outward because one life was ended before they took their first breath.

I think of that scene in "Children of Men," when the nurse Miriam is recounting to the main character Theo her memories of the beginning of the end of society, when the babies stopped being born, “As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in. Very odd, what happens in a world without children’s voices.” 

The world is missing so much laughter. It is a quieter and grayer place without those souls lost to abortion, and it breaks my heart. 

Moms, Dads, your baby is a blessing, like sunshine, warming everything its light touches. 

So throw the pebble, choose life, and watch the ripples go on and on and on.