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Biological Father

My nine-year-old daughter has had virtually no contact with her biological father during her life. He last saw her when she was two and there has been no contact since. We do keep in contact with her biological grandparents and she has an older half sister whom she has met and talked to on the phone. However, at this point, her biological father won't allow her to see this sister and since he has custody of the other child that is our impasse. I met my husband when my daughter was two-and-a-half, and we were married a year later. She has always considered him her dad and even told me when she was little that she remembers being two because that's when she found her daddy. He formally adopted her when she was five. My question is about how her biological father abandoning and refusing to acknowledge her might affect her later in life and what I can do or be doing to help with those issues now.

The Importance of Attachment for Infants

I just read your answer to the previous questions: "I have two questions that may be seen as sides of the same coin: how does being abandoned as an infant affect the emotional growth and stability of a person? What are the lasting repercussions on a single mother, or father, who chose not to raise their child, and hence, gave their baby away?"

It was rather eye-opening for me. I am an adoptee and I recently met my birthmother for the first time. Since I was born in 1975, I was put in a foster home for six weeks prior to being adopted, as it was the standard practice at the time. I can relate to many of the things you brought up in your answer to the question above (low immune system, colic for 18 months). The big mystery in my mind is, What happened in the foster home? How does having three mothers, two of which are strange and new, affect an infant?

Adoption Expense

My husband and I really want to adopt. We can support and love another child, but the problem comes in with the huge chunk of money you have to come up with for the adoption. Are there any options for those of us who want to love and raise a child but but can't come up with that large amount of money all at once?

Being a Birthmother

I have just read your question and answer page on Mothering.com, and as a birthmother, I am so very touched to have discovered a voice for what I have been sorting out for the past seven years. I have an eight-year-old daughter, adopted into a wonderful family, and our adoption is open. I am currently pregnant with my second child, whom I will raise. Your words, "Adoption is an interruption, a disruption, of the natural order of things" is exactly the conclusion that I've come to at this time about my experience. It has worked out extremely well; my daughter is well cared for, and I know her, get emails from her, and we love each other and tell each other as much. But it has done nothing but disrupt the last eight years of my life, and I am constantly questioning the extent to which it has and will disrupt her own.

I am seven weeks away from delivering my second child, a boy. I have had a very difficult time allowing myself to bond with this child. I have felt guilt throughout the pregnancy, for both children. I feel I love him and have bonded with him, but not like with my daughter. I sang to her, knew her, talked with her. I sat for hours and watched her move inside of me. I cherished and cared for her every moment I had with her. With my son, I do the same things, but I also have so much more fear. I fear he will be taken away; I fear he will not be healthy; I fear I will not be able to nurse or to soothe as a mother. I fear a part of me has been lost. Can you speak to what I, as a birthmother, have experienced? On a primal level, have I lost something? My therapist says I will bond with this child when he comes, when I hold him, when I see him. I believe to a pretty solid extent that I will. I also feel I've been damaged and don't want to do damage to my new son with my inability to forget the past and separate this birth from the last.

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