I am a replacement child. AMA

[sneakyrussian]

My Mum and dad lost a 4 year old son under horrendous circumstances and were told to have a new baby asap to help heal and for the benefit of my other younger brother. I was born 16 months later. My Mum left me with my dad when I was 9 for a new relationship and went onto have another child.

I'm so sorry to hear you felt like a replacement child. (Not hear that term before). How did this impact your childhood and later life?

Are you in contact now with your mother? Did she or your father call you a replacement child?

I don't understand how your parents were advised to conceive you for the benefit of your younger brother? Do you mean older?

Oh that’s very sad OP, I’m so sorry that you feel this way x

The ‘younger brother’ is the younger brother of the deceased 4 year old. So the middle child in this scenario.

It was quite a bleak childhood. After my mum left my brothers mental health became quite poor and he's never recovered, his MH problems are quite obvious but functioning. My dad had a quite a demanding job and was so depressed it was almost palpable so I became a one kid make dad happy at any cost show, this continued until his death from dementia. My self esteem was none existent and I've worn a mask for years to hide the shame of my mum leaving. But she was very unwell herself I don't think treating grief with another baby was very good advice but quite common back in the 70's. I think the disaster of my brother dying and no therapy or counselling back then caused devastation to all the family.

I had contact initially when she left home but it was sporadic and she'd moved 2 hours away so I could feel it was an effort. When she got pregnant I think 2 years after she left roughly I couldn't cope and got very upset. She rang one day and I couldn't cope with the sound of her voice so put the phone down. I'm sure she did make an effort to see me again but I don't remember it. Then in my very early 20's I reached out to her but it ended in distaster. But I do get birthday cards. No they never called me a replacement child it's just the term used.

Thank you I think it's like ripples in the water, very sad for us all following my brothers death. I'm sore the medical advice had changed now.

Have you considered reaching out to media or the medical-mental health establishment to share your story? I fear that advice might still be floating around.

How do you know that you were conceived specifically to ‘replace’ your dead sibling and that your parents weren’t planning to have more children anyway?

Because my dad had a vasectomy after my other brother was born. My mum was a nurse and the hospital she worked for offered to trial a brand new surgery, a vasectomy reversal to allow them to conceive. Dad told me many years later he was reading a headline in the newspaper about the first baby born after the first vasectomy reversal and the baby was younger than me.

I haven't tbh I'm 48 and it's only the last year that I've allowed myself to start thinking about my mum leaving and the circumstances of it all because it has always been too painful. I would never have brought it up to my dad or drawn attention to it unless he brought it up as the pain of it all stayed with him. Only very occasionally would it be mentioned. He once said it feels like yesterday your mum left and my brother died. He spent the rest of his life single.

I can’t imagine ever leaving my children and I am so sorry for what you have been through and the impact it has had on you.

I’m not excusing your mother but, as another mother whose child died and who went on to have another child (who I would not have otherwise had), the grief and depression changes you and your feelings and actions aren’t always reasonable or any reflection of the person you once were. Your child dies and, honestly, the person you were also dies and sometimes the person you have become and are stuck with being is someone the original you would have hated.

My mum will never know but my heart actually breaks for her and dad and for you too, I am so sorry I can't imagine how awful it must have been and still be.

My dad told me once that at the time he was working for a very large oil company who offered to take take of a lawyer etc but dad said he was so confused at the time that he decided to stick with the local lawyer. He did say that him and mum would never have tried to sue the hospital as the thought of being awarded a financial settlement was too much to bare but they wanted to make sure it never happened again.

Do you know what happened to your brother? Was he spoken about openly during your childhood?

He was born with a small hole in his heart and needed some dental work. Because of his heart condition my understanding is that the increased risk meant the procedure had to be done in hospital. Now the next bit I don't have all the details for but the gist is the anaesthetist was a drug addict and he made a mistake in 3 of the operations he over saw that day. My brother died on the table, another patient was left with very severe life changing brain damage and the other patient survived did have problems but made a full recovery. I know there was an inquest. I'm sketchy about the details but if it was ever brought up I just listened and barely spoke because it was such a sad conversation and obviously hard for dad to talk about.