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The StoryCorps Mobile Tour is partnering with WUSF Public Media to record and preserve the stories of Tampa residents and preserve them in the Library of Congress. For 16 years, the StoryCorps Mobile Tour has brought loved ones together for thousands of meaningful conversations about the things that matter most.

StoryCorps Tampa Bay: The difficult choice of giving up a child for adoption

Kayla Heath (right) talks her best friend Dana Peska about how Dana came to the decision to give her son up for adoption.
Courtesy: StoryCorps
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StoryCorps
Kayla Heath (right) talks her best friend Dana Peska about how Dana came to the decision to give her son up for adoption.

Dana Peska shares a conversation with her friend Kayla Heath about her experience giving a child up for adoption.

Dana Peska tells her best friend, Kayla Heath, about her experience of giving up a child for adoption, and how she came to this difficult decision to decide what was best for her unborn son, a family in need, and herself.

At 24, Peska found herself pregnant with a second child and no longer in a relationship with the baby's father.

"My son was about a year and a half when I found myself pregnant again," Peska said. "I was already a single mom. Already having a child and knowing how much love I had for him, I couldn't bring myself to have an abortion. I really didn't know what I was going to do."

Before her son was born, Peska decided to give her son up for adoption to a family from her church.

"You made the right decision," Heath said. "These beautiful parents were ready to be parents."

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