‘90s FAMILY : The Other Mother : This year, one woman will say a quiet prayer of gratitude on Mother’s Day, giving thanks for a teen-ager who gave her baby a new life and a new family.

He’s asleep. The sudden quiet in the house is unnerving because I’ve become accustomed to the sounds a 9-month-old boy creates. He gurgles contentment as he studies the mirror I hold to his face. He squeals with laughter as he bounces wildly in his doorway jumper. He occasionally whines to catch my attention and lifts his arms in the air to be picked up by his mommy.

The silence of nap time urges me to reflect. Perhaps that’s because Christopher and I have become so close that I almost can’t remember my life before him. Or perhaps, as springtime flowers explode along the drive, I am reminded that Mother’s Day is Sunday. It will be my first.

Good fortune allows me to celebrate that day--instead of dreading it as I have before. Infertility isn’t a curse anymore; I have Christopher now.

This year I, like millions of other women across the country, will enjoy a bouquet of flowers and dinner out. In my joy, I’ll say a quiet prayer of gratitude. I’ll thank God. And I’ll thank a teen-age girl who lives 3,000 miles away.

She’s the other mother.

She’s the high school sophomore and popular athlete whose fate became entwined with mine the day she learned she was pregnant. Her shock turned to commitment and she decided to carry her baby to term. Perhaps she chose to place the baby for adoption because she was adopted herself. Whatever the reason, she was determined to give her baby the only gifts she could.

She gave him his life and a healthy start.

And then she gave him to us.

We learned of each other by accident. My husband, Dave, and I had just returned home from a cross-country trip to meet another pregnant woman, but had decided against adopting her baby. We had been home only two days when the telephone rang.

In a weird twist of fate, a woman we had met during the trip had just learned that her teen-age daughter was pregnant. Her daughter wanted to meet us right away.

Once again we flew across the country and nervously prepared to meet a young girl who would decide whether we were suitable candidates for parenthood. But what awaited us was a welcome, not a test. The girl and her mother were standing at the gate when we walked off the plane. The girl offered us a sweet smile and an armful of flowers.

After two days we said goodby with tears and hugs. The next time we would see each other would be at the hospital the day Christopher was born.

She was lying in the bed surrounded by her family when we walked into her hospital room. She held her newborn out to me. Everybody in the room began to cry. She said goodby to her son with a tender kiss on his forehead.

We decided to keep the name she had given him--Christopher.

I remember her courage and commitment to adoption whenever I read reports on battles between birth and adoptive families. These instances have sparked a lot of debate about adoption. Friends of ours who wanted to adopt changed their minds after reading about Jessica DeBoer, the 2-year-old removed from her adoptive parents and returned to her birth family in 1993.

And Hollywood detailed a similar battle in the film “Losing Isaiah.”

At times I feel I have to defend our family against the onslaught of concern from well-meaning friends, relatives and curious strangers. Many of them assume we are in constant risk of losing Christopher because he was adopted.

While instances of failed adoptions are tragic, they are also rare. Our attorney and counselors said less than 5% of birth parents who have placed children for adoption will reclaim them. Many adoptive parents are in peaceful, if not loving, relationships with their children’s birth families.

Yet people seem suspicious of our open relationship with Christopher’s birth mother. I’ve been asked several times if I am afraid of her.

I’m not afraid. I can’t be. Not after she welcomed us to her hospital room and urged us to hold the infant she had just delivered. Not after she kissed her baby boy goodby so I could become his mother.

Some have suggested we cut off contact with her even though we’ve been writing letters and telephoning ever since the baby was born. They fear her biological tie somehow threatens my status as his mother.

It doesn’t. I don’t need to have given birth to Christopher to love him any more than I do. It is I who will see his first step and cheer for him at his first Little League game. I am the mother he will call Mommy .

Christopher will know about his birth mother. He will understand that she was his mother for those months before he was born and that she chose us to raise him. I hope he will love her and respect her for that, because she did it for him.

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Birth mothers often face challenges to their decision to place their babies for adoption. In our case, the teen-ager’s parents supported her, but classmates in a special school for pregnant teens ridiculed her decision. They bet her she would change her mind at the hospital. Of 30 pregnant girls enrolled there, she was the only one to choose adoption. The rest, some as young as 12, chose to parent the children themselves.

It was a difficult decision for her, but she tells us we made it easier because she knew we would give her baby a loving home. She tells us she still grieves for the baby boy she carried for nine months, but she has no regrets.

She wants to finish high school, then go on to college. The photographs she sends us--she with a new boyfriend on the way to the prom, or smiling broadly with girlfriends--show she has gotten on with the life a teen-ager should lead.

Other things arrive in the mail that show her feelings for us. She recently sent a cassette tape with a song about a pregnant girl who is convinced that adoption is the right choice for her. It is titled “From God’s Arms to My Arms to Yours.” On the cassette box, Christopher’s birth mother wrote us a note:

“It says everything I mean. Please listen to the words! You can play this song as you rock Christopher to sleep at night. I love you.”

So it is with the other mother’s blessing that I will celebrate this Mother’s Day. I will enjoy the cards and the attention, but I will remember that it is her first Mother’s Day as well.

I wonder how the day will pass for her. I doubt she’ll be receiving flowers or be treated to dinner out. No one will honor her on that day.

No one, that is, but me.