Grieving lack of birth child?

[user1479136681]

I'm 30 and DS was placed when I was 29. We're young adopters, same-sex couple and adoption was our first choice. Neither of us wanted to be pregnant, I've wanted to adopt for years. It was always how I imagined creating my family.

Since our son has been home I've gone through some weird stages. Firstly of wishing I could have carried him and kept him safe after he was born. Lately I've been really wondering if I missed out on not getting pregnant. Is this like, late stage unanticipated grief?! It's been a hard week anyway. I wonder how many hard weeks are to come.

I wonder if I should have spent more time analysing my choice - but then I would never have done anything probably! We looked seriously into conceiving and even to the stage of choosing donors before we decided against it. Now it feels like my biological clock has started ticking. What is happening?!?

Would be it worth talking to our SW or will this pass? How do you work through these feelings once your DC is at home?

I think the feelings you are having about your son are probably quite common and in view of your other posts are really quite positive.

My son is 16, he came to me at 8. He is a young man, quite independent in many ways. I am incredibly proud of him and enjoying this new phase in our lives. I am also really sad that I only had a few years of him as a little boy, I wish I'd known him as a baby, toddler, I wish I was there on his first day at school, I wish we had had more years when he believed in Father Christmas and the tooth fairy, when he would hold my hand in public, when I didnt have to pay adult prices for him! I wish I could have protected him in those early years.
I couldnt protect him then, but I can now, so thats what I focus on.

Loss of all kinds is at the heart of adoption. You have him now, you can protect him now, focus on that.

I agree that what you are feeling it experienced by a lot of adopters. We are in our 30s too, adoption was first choice for us, we never yearned for birth children or had the heartache of infertility.

I still have no desire to be pregnant or have a birth child but I do feel very sad that I missed my DS’ first year, that he went through a lot and I wasn’t there to look after him.

I think the question you need to ask yourself is are you grieving not having a birth child or are you grieving not being your child birth mother?

For me it is definitely the second and that is the nature of adoption.

Haha @Ted27 I have been posting a lot haven't I!

@SFCA I think it is the second one tbh and missing his first year. I wish I could have kept him safe, not drank whilst pregnant and held him at a tiny baby. Like Ted I guess, even though my son is much younger I missed his first steps etc. I don't always correct people who assume he's biological and I quite enjoy that feelo!

@user1479136681

post all you like and as often as you need, its why we are all here

Have you posted specifically about this before? I remember the topic but am not certain about your username.

I think that based on the other thread if it was yours and discussions with my adoptive mother over the years, there is every possibility that it is both scenarios you are grieving. The fact that you are still well within fertile years is going to make it more difficult. I think that you need to talk to someone in real life in a therapeutic setting about all your feelings, be honest about them all, so that you can process properly, otherwise they will creep up and affect you in ways you don't expect. I would set this in motion before talking to a SW probably.

I think if you are grieving both scenarios it is normal and understandable, but you do need to work out exactly how you think and feel about it or it will affect you in the future and your dc.

I understand how you feel. DD came at a day old and so I was there for all of the firsts. I still feel a little sad sometimes. Partly due to her pre birth experience but mostly because being adopted will affect her for the rest of her life and we’ve already had many conversations that I wish we hadn’t had to have. I want her to have the simplest happiest life possible but already the odds are stacked against her. After a lot of processing though, I came to see that if I had carried her, she wouldn’t be her If you see what I mean and she’s all that she needs to be and the thought of her being anyone else is horrifying.

I know Covid has cocked things up. But are you part of any real life adoption support groups? Definitely speak to your social worker if you have a good one. Are you able to access some good quality therapy?

What you’re feeling is really common, but it is a shit feeling and I think its made more difficult that non-adoptive parents etc just don’t get it and you’re almost expected to instantly have this little perfect parenting experience.

My son was 18 months, its an in family adoption so there is a biological link between us, but in a way that makes certain things harder as I’m NC with them.

Parenting is like a cycle of guilt and it can be so hard to rely on the rational side of your brain rather than the emotional side. Therapy and help hugely with that.

It may sound weird but it helped me telling my son how I felt, my worries etc, I had the luxury of being able to do this because of his age. I felt (and sometimes do) guilty about things that happened to my son as a baby, my rational brain knows I had no control over what happened to him as a baby, but the emotional side of me feels that as a parent I failed to protect him. I don’t think I was prepared for how angry I would sometimes feel when I think about his babyhood and the pain that parenting brings.

I sometimes get upset that he isn’t mine in the biological sense and would loved for him to have been ‘my’ baby, I used to sometimes imagine what it would have been like if he was ‘my’ baby, which is impossible unless I’m Arnie in Junior. But, as previous poster has said, if I was there from day one he wouldn’t be who he is and he wouldn’t be my little boy.

He recently turned five, I still have the odd wobble, but if I think about how often they are I would say maybe every 6/8 weeks and I now have the tools to properly deal with those wobbles. They’re usually linked to him achieving something as I’m in denial about him growing up.

@sassygromit now that you mention it, I think I did post here on the same topic!! That was after a friend had given birth, recently another friend has given birth and it's triggered a lot of feelings in me. There were complications in the recent birth which has meant baby is still in hospital, I'm really worried about her and my friend and that's all tied up too.

I would love to talk to a professional about this, it sounds silly but I'm not really sure how? Would my GP refer me? My GP is really poor with adoption stuff. They have been a nightmare from medicals onwards. There were issues with registering our DS with them (took 6 weeks!!!) and they make constant gaffes re us being a same sex couple. This probably doesn't help my feelings of illegitimacy!! So I don't really want to talk to them but I'll grit my teeth if there's no other way!!

@SimonJT thank you for your reply, the guilt cycles are strong and it's interesting to hear it's similar within a family placement. I haven't been to any irl groups but I've stayed in touch with everyone from our training cohort and it's great to talk and meet up with them. I keep meaning to join the Adoption UK zoom meetings but often forget or am frantically cleaning up!

OP actually I am not sure, I think that Relate do general counselling because i have read that before on here, it is worth phoning them to find out and if not see what they recommend, I am sure they will know the ins and outs of finding the right person. My adoptive mother regretted not having bio children terribly as time went on. They weren't a same sex couple but they did make the decision for other reasons, and like you she was very much still at fertile age. She kept burying it all and it would pop out when it shouldn't and it was really hard for everyone. All these feelings are complicated there is no right or wrong with the feelings themselves, what matters is what you do with them once you know what they are, I think.

@sassygromit that's awful, I'm sorry. I don't want to do that to our son.

I've contacted our local Mind who you can talk to without GP referral, although it is £40 per session eek hopefully it won't take many 😅

Mostly I think this is stemming from exhaustion. We had placement on the first day of lockdown, then my wife got made redundant due to Covid, didn't see family for months as they live far away. Now my wife has gone back to work, she had an interview on a Monday and they wanted to start on Wednesday so no transition period.. she works away one night a week so I'm on my own then. I had a bit of a breakdown last night and today I'm having a lie-in and then going out to the shops for my first solo excursion in 5 months!! I'm going to get a Starbucks and buy a dress, and listen to music I like in the car instead of baby music... Amazing!

Her wanting bio dc wasn't awful, sorry I didn't mean to give that impression! In relation to holding on to feelings, it was because of her own background - she thought that thinking about feelings was self indulgent and weak - whereas now we aim for emotional intelligence which is about being aware of feelings all round. And I also think that there was pressure on her and still is on adoptive parents to not feel like that, needlessly.

A toddler cd came on in the car the other day by accident, and dc who are much older were singing along at the top of their voices! lol "never smile at a crocodile...."

I hope that the counselling works well for you.