Making the decision to put your baby up for adoption isn’t one made hastily. Usually, there is a lot of conversation and reflection that leads you there. One woman on social media made the difficult decision to put her baby up for adoption, and she was lucky to find a woman who wanted to adopt her baby within her immediate circle.
Everything was going to plan, but based on a misunderstanding in the delivery room, the adoptive mom missed out on an important moment. Now, things are awkward between the women.
The pregnancy was unplanned and unwanted.
A 22-year-old woman “accidentally” got pregnant by her boyfriend. “Neither of us were in a position to be raising a child, but a cousin of my boyfriend is having trouble conceiving,” she wrote on Reddit. The woman, who is referred to as “F,” and her husband are in their mid-30s and have been trying to have a baby for five years. In those five years, F has had multiple “incredibly traumatic” miscarriages.
According to the original poster, F really wanted a biological baby, and approached the younger couple because they are related. So she came up with a workable solution. “She said that if I carry this child to term and let her adopt it, she’ll help pay for me and my boyfriend’s college tuitions.”
They agreed to the adoption, and a contract was created with the help of a lawyer.
Over the rest of her pregnancy, the woman said that things were “surprisingly easy.” Her labor and delivery were also fairly easy, with both F and her boyfriend in the room.
However, after the baby girl was born, problems began to arise. The nurse, who was unaware of the arrangement, handed the woman her baby for skin-to-skin immediately after the birth. “I didn’t ask them to,” she wrote.
“F immediately started freaking out, screaming how she was supposed to be the first one to hold” the baby. “She was yelling that those first moments of bonding were so important for creating attachment to the mother, that I was taking that from her, that the baby was going to hate her now because of it, etc, etc.”
Everything began to fall apart at that moment.
Eventually, the yelling stopped, but the new adoptive mom “spent the next 30 minutes sobbing.” She was allegedly too distraught to even hold the baby, and her husband had to come pick her up. Things did get better, but now F won’t speak to her as they agreed to an open adoption.
“I feel for her because I know she’s has a lot of trauma related to feeling like a bad mother due to her miscarriages, but I also feel like she had no right to yell at me right after I gave birth. My boyfriend is on my side, but the rest of his family says I should apologize to F,” the woman wrote.
People don’t think there is anything to apologize for, but there needs to be a conversation with the adoptive mom.
“Nurses do births day in and day out so I’m sure they are accustomed to structure and was only following the steps they had been trained to,” one person noted. “No one’s at fault here and I really think that F was overreacting especially after you literally gave birth! I wouldn’t apologise to her but maybe just try and talk it out and explain that.”
Someone else had a different take: “She crazily overreacted. If she had stayed calm, she could have held the baby immediately, instead she threw a tantrum. I’m surprised you went through with the adoption after that.”
“She should be apologising to you, it’s a hard enough time as it is and if she felt so strongly she should have discussed it beforehand, you have nothing to apologise for,” another commenter shared. “It might be worth suggesting some mediation or counselling because it sounds like her behaviour will become more toxic over time.”
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
