21 years ago, a woman gave her biological daughter up for adoption. Now, the adult daughter wants to meet her – but the birth mother isn’t interested.
That’s the tough situation Reddit user adoptivethrowhelp is in – and she took to the site to ask others for help and advice.
She explained that she had fallen pregnant in her teens despite using condoms, but that her pro-life family and then-boyfriend pressured her to give the baby up for adoption instead of having an abortion.
She said that the unwanted pregnancy had caused her to end contact with her family and had even contributed to serious mental health issues, including an eating disorder and suicidal thoughts.
Now, more than two decades years later, the biological daughter has made contact - but adoptivethrowhelp wants nothing to do with her child.
She wrote:
Last week my biological daughter contacted me through Facebook and she wants to meet me. She has said explicitly that she wants a relationship with me and wants me to meet with her adoptive family as well. I do not want to meet her or have any kind of relationship with her. This is not negotiable. I just don’t want to. It’s going to remind me of events I don’t want to remember. I know many people will call me selfish or a monster but I have already decided I am not going to meet her. My question is: How and what do I tell her?
Reddit users had plenty of advice for the birth mother, and while some were critical of her decision not to meet her daughter, most were sympathetic and supportive.
LacesOutRayFinkle wrote, "I think people who have nothing to do with adoption have no idea how complicated it can be... You have every right to not want to see her, and if you were my bio mum I would respect that."
inhale_exhale_repeat added, "I honestly think that people who are clear-headed and selfless enough to put a baby up for adoption when they cannot properly care for a child should be commended. A private adoption organised before the baby is born is a thousand times kinder than abuse, resentment, neglect etc of a child."
Many people even helped her draft a message to her birth daughter, while others offered specific advice, such as the importance of passing along family medical information.
And while it is a sad story, it's heart-warming to see the internet act as a supportive force for good, for once.
What advice would you give the birth mother?
