OK..so I am 32 years old and have been with my husband for over 6 years, married for 2. I have two wonderful step daughters who are 11 and 13. I get along great with their mom and we have them close to 50%of the time.
Although, I love these girls like my own and do so much for them, I still feel the need to have a child of my own. I have always wanted to be a mother, and even though I feel like one, it becomes very painful on days like mother’s day when the girl’s are spending time with their mother and making her mother’s day cards etc and I’m not really included. Last mother’s day I spent partially in tears because I didn’t hear from them except one happy mother’s day text late at night from the oldest, which happened after my emotional episode.
I go to softball tournaments, chauffeur them around, play games with them and take them out to dinner and have girl’s days with them. I am super involved.
Another part of the history…i have poly cystic ovaries and very likely am not physically able to have my own kids, and even if I was, I’m also a late onset type 1 diab etic and would be a very high risk pregnancy. For all those reasons, my husband and I have decided (since we don’t have 30-50 thousand dollars to privately adopt) to foster 1-2 little boys and hope to be able to adopt.
We have finally bought a house with the room and settled in and started the process which has being going on for several months.
The last few days, the youngest step daughter who has always been a daddy’s girl and who he has always had a soft spot for when it comes to discipline etc… has started having these 1-2 hour melt downs about how she doesn’t want a foster kid and how we aren’t going to have enough time to spend with her etc…
We have tried reasoning with her about how we will make time for all of our kids and they will be a part of the family and we al do things together…we have tried telling her it’s normal to feel this way to an extent but that she should just give it a chance, we have tried telling her how we will be helping out a child who has gone through trauma…we have tried it all…she won’t listen to reason and even after she calms down and seems okay with everything..she has the same melt down later or the next day.
So my husband who is usually a pretty amazing guy..is so worried about how his going to affect her…he is having second thoughts..says he will try it but then says if it affects her, he won’t continue. I have told him it doesn’t work that way. You just don’t give a child back and play with their life like that.
I asked him if he would have me abort the baby if I was pregnant and she was acting like this. He says it’s not the same, but to me..it is. This fostering process is my pregnancy. This is my only shot at having a child of my own who can call me mom. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to not have any children of his own. It’s exactly the same.
We both become so upset when discussing it. I end up in tears, and he tells me that he can’t sacrifice his child’s well being to take in a foster child he doesn’t even know yet. He says that if this ended up causing damage to her, he would end up resenting me and it would hurt our marriage. I tell him that if I can’t have a child , which is the one thing I’ve always wanted more than anything, I would mean to but would probably resent him and my step daughter, atleast subconsciously.
I get where he’s coming from, but to me this is not negotiable. I honestly think once we get a foster child she will be fine. If she needs some counseling she can get some counseling. I don’t want to cause her any pain either but this is just a jealous child who is scared of sharing her daddy and me. The reaction may be a little extreme, but the emotions are perfectly common. She has always been overly emotional.
I don’t know where to go from here, because every time we try to discuss it, we get nowhere.Like
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16 replies
Caity1213 · 24/08/2018 06:32
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