I just don’t think I love her - is this normal?

[nolovehere]

Ok - firstly let me start by saying that I have an adopted DD and a DSS. I am also receiving counselling from adoption UK and have an appointment with my SW who knows the score, so I am not here asking for help - I am posting in AIBU as it has high traffic and I really really want opinions so that I can have informed discussions with SS etc.

My DD was 8 months old when we adopted her (not formally adopted her yet, but she has been living with us for 6 months now). I just don?t love her, and don?t believe I ever will. Not like a child of my own.
I care for her and want the best for her but I just don?t have the bond with her that I believe real mothers have - and can?t see it ever coming.

I am trying really hard to get pregnant (my DH has the fertility problems, and I am thinking of donor sperm), and am seriously in talks with SS as to whether or not to return her to the care system. I know it would break my heart - for her - but I think in the long run we?d all be better off. I?m not really canvassing opinion on whether I should do this, as only my DH and I can make those decisions - but I guess I just don?t really believe that ANYONE can love an adopted child the way you could love a birth child.

So, as I head into these counselling sessions I think I would just be interested in other people?s opinions on that issue - she?s a lovely baby, really, which makes it harder. I like her a lot, - but like I like my nieces and nephews, or my friend?s DC - I just don?t have that motherly rush. I think if she was biologically mine, I believe it would come - but the fact that she came from another family, and will always have links to them, means I just don?t believe I will ever change my mind on this. And I can?t parent a child I don?t love.

Is this normal? I don?t know if I fully believe other adopters who say they love their adopted children like they?d love a biological one. Or is it just me, and do I have issues (that I WILL iron out. I will)

Thanks

name changed, of course!

I think you need to give it time. Even with bio children, attachment deepens over time.
I am sure I love my 17 month old DD more now than I did when she was 8 months (though I did care about her an awful lot then too).

Also, becoming a mother isn't like a maic mantle that descends when you give birth and suddenly you find yourself endowed with all those motherly qualities that you expect of a mum and which you (hopefully) saw in your own mother.

Instead it is a role - which you have to grow into just like you would a new role at work. It feel very odd at first!

Ive been a mum for 17 months now and I still sometimes feel like I am "playing the part" - eg I often feel like I can't be bothered to take DD upstairs after breakfast and wash her hands and clean her teeth - its a bore, after all! But then I think, I am her mother, and that is what mums do, and that is my responsibility and my role - who else will make sure DD is clean if I don't?

But there is nothing wrong with playing the part! It IS a role, and love is a decision to act as well as being a feeling. Indeed to decision to behave in a loving and caring way often engenders love - because your daughter will become attached to you if you care for her, and this will make you love her back.

I started really feeling the love in a conscious way with my daughter when she was old enough to say "mum-mum" and run to my legs and blow me kisses - nothing like that to make your heart melt! But your daughter is too young, just as she would be if she was your bio daughter.

I adore my son. He is now nearly 5.

But it took me months to call him his name, I looked at him when he was first born and thought hmm, funny looking kid. .

The first year of a baby's life is hard, there is so little coming back to you. It starts getting interesting from now on in really!

You may be in shock, it's a big thing to take on, a child, one day you are a woman, the next you are a mother without any of the hormones.

I feel for you I really do. You are brave to post about this, but I think it's a great sign that you have. Is your self esteem pretty low anyway? Why is it so hard for you to see how much you are loved?

Now that she is growing, understand one thing, she loves you, you are her world.

Pay really close attention to the reactions and affection she gives you, and look at what these mean. It means she loves you utterly and totally unconditionally. Let her show YOU how to love. She can show you what she feels for you and I'll bet that she'll find the same in your heart.

So please dont give up on your little girl - I meant to add. I believe you honestly can fall in love with any child - whether it be biologically related to you or not - especially if you have them from so very young.

Nolovehere - you are doing something incredible that the majority of people in this country will never have any experience of.

The reality is that it has to be right for all parties and as somebody said earlier you should not continue with an adoption of a child out of guilt or some other negative feeling. These feelings will always find a way out in the end and would eventually harm your relationship.

I gave you my experience of SS and adoption and also explained my lack of maternal love after my last child was born but that was merely examples of how things are not always as they seem. That is not always the case though, sometimes things are exactly as they seem and the reality is that adoptions can fail.

You are doing the right thing with the counselling and canvassing experiences from other people but at the end of the day you and your husband have to make this decision on your own. Whatever happens for the three of you I wish you luck! I think I will duck out of here now as it is moving too fast for my slow brain!

You know some birth mothers don't feel that instant rush of love you are talking about? I didn't. I went through the motions of caring for dd1 and like you wanted the best for her, but I didn't feel an intense love for her. It came in time though, but it wasn't a sudden rush, it developed over time.

She has only been with you for two months and in that time your life has changed massively, your feelings are going to be all over the place, just like a bio mums would be.

I really don't think that any of us here can give you the answers you are looking for. You need to work on this issue with SS and your councillors.

Have no experience of adoption, but interested in this post and just wanted to say that I really hope that you work this out. There's some myth out there about maternal love and the biological stuff, some mums experience it, some mums don't. Presumably her birth mum wasn't able to and she needs you to try to. You say she has been living with you for 6 months - if you'd carried a baby, you'd have 9 months of bonding with him or her before they'd made their way into the world, and then it isn't instant. Love isn't always an instant feeling - true love grows over time.

Is it possible that you need to grieve for the biological child you may never have? Perhaps this is clouding your feelings at the moment. Perhaps as another poster said - it's not a case of being one or the other, perhaps she could just be one component of your family. I don't know if this is an option.

Best of luck.
I'm sure you don't need guilting into anything - and guilt would be the wrong reason to proceed, but please think long and hard about the ramifications for her. For whatever reason, she doesn't have a birth mother, and further issues finding a family to settle with can surely only leave her with a sense of rejection that may never leave her.

And this is not a first hand account but I have a friend in a lesbian relationship. They got married, they wanted kids. Obviously they needed assistance So my friend got pregnant with donor sperm. She had twin boys. The boys look very much like her and her family. evidently they look nothing like her wife. My friend is the breadwinner and her wife is home a lot more doing more of the day to day drudgery care. The boys ADORE both of them and BOTH my friend and her wife feel like their mothers. I don't think either of them can even articulate to each other, from what they've said to me, on whether their love is the same because it is individual to each of them (just like I can't say if dh loves ds in the same way that I do. He probably doesn't, he loves him in his own way, whatever that means to him). And equally valid. They both feel a deep, strong, loving, maternal connection to the boys and I can't perceive any difference in the relationship just because one carried and gave birth to them and one didn't.

OP - this IS your mothering experience. This is REALLY how it feels for you to be a mother. This, what you are experiencing with your daughter. I think if you return her to the system to persue a 'better' experience with another child (maybe a biological child) you could be setting yourself up for heartbreak and crushing disappointment. For vast swathes of mothers there is no flick of a switch and massive rush of twinkly fairytale love.

There are plenty of posts on MN written by women who have given birth and are disparing because they don't feel that very sane thing you are quite convinced you would feel with a child you had given birth to. They were quite sure they would feel it too, but it never happened. There is no guarentee.

All there is, is working with what you have got. What YOU have is a daughter.

You say you care for her and want the best for her. So, do the best you can and it will very probably get a whole lot better.

Shd read "very same thing"

You're very brave for posting this. I have no experience of adoption, but I do have a DSD. I never felt that rush of love for her that I felt for my dds when they were born. I do love her though. But it has taken me 16 years to actually realise that yes I do love her.

For years I have felt this guilt that I couldn't feel for her what I feel for my dds. I have come to realise that it's not in the feeling that love is there. It's in the action. Everything I do for my DSD from the mundane care - washing, cleaning up after her, to the lectures I give her, to the bloody worry when we don't know where she is. All show how much I care and love her.

I would certainly give yourself time. 6 months isn't that long. Certainly have counselling. But I'll bet the guilt you would feel if you sent her back in to the care system would be a lot stronger that any guilt you feel now.

nolovehere - I have sent you a PM. If you are unaware of them, go to the very top of your page, find the little envelope (it should now have a red blob on it) and click on that to open Private Messaging.

OP I have no experience of your situation but like others you are very brave for talking about your feelings.

I just wanted to let you know that I didn't feel like I loved my DD2 (who is my birth child) for probably over a year. She was a very difficult baby and I was depressed and at times i had feelings of real hatred towards her. Things got easier and I look back on the feelings I had and am mortified.

I don't know what the right thing is for you to do but I think that you might never get over sending her back...

I didn't get a rush of love for my twins. I was so tramautised by their premature birth and pregnancy that I shut down my emotions. I was always convinced that they would die in SCBU so I sort of decided not to love them until they were out of danger. I think I was protecting myself in a weird way. They got to about 6 months and I completely fell in love with them. They are now 5 and I can look back on my feelings with regret. I had some very dark thoughts at 3am.

My DH is adopted. His adoptive father and him are so similar in their mannerisms, views on life/politics it's uncanny. They are much more alike than my dad and brother (biological). My DH doesn't want to search out his biological family.

Pressed post too early.

Good luck. Your honesty will help you. Get some therapy. Keep talking and you will find a way through. Your adoption process was so long it sounds like you are reacting to the stress of the last four years.

I wanted to add my name to the list of birth mothers who had no rush of love.
I went through the motions,I cared for her,fed her,dressed her,I acted the part.
I would have sent my dd back if I could have,but there was nowhere to send her.
I shudder at that thought now.
I love her unconditionaly.but it took a long time...hang on in there.
when it happens it is a beautiful thing.x

I really have no experience about this, but just wanted to answer you. I echo what the previous poster said. I would worry about the long term effects of a failed adoption. On your DD of course, but what about the effect on you? Will it seem like a missed chance? Can you deal with the bad feelings you could well have? As your daughter grows and changes and you build memories, things could change.

Hmmm I only ever had that motherly rush for my first born, I love all my children very much and equally but the intensity for some of them has never been there it's just grown over time............

The statistics are that 1 in 5 uk adoptions fails. It was in the Observer last week (I think). That is a lot of people.

I suppose sooner is better than later if it is going to
happen.

I can't think that any of these adoptive parents want to fail after waiting for years for a child, any more than the OP.

i think you are been very honest. i work within the social care setting and through the years have worked with a lot of young people where adoption has failed. in my experience this has caused further turmoil and compounds the origional rejection. not only have their own parents rejected (as they see it) but then a chosen family too. I have worked with the family's where adoptions have broken down and quite often they say, they knew something was a foot on some level.the care system also needs to take responsabilty as the corporate parent before, during and after the adoption, a lot of the parents i have woked with said they felt pressured to go ahead. use the support network around you and trust your insticts.you are thinking from a child centred point even if you dont feel like that right now.

not read the thread, but it took a lot longer than six months for me to love my DD.

There are many threads on here about mothers who do not love their babies, it is very far from unusual, though taboo.

You adopted her, she is yours, you have a duty to care for her to the best of your ability. And that means not thinking about giving her back, and possibly not thinking about TTCing for the next couple of years.

You have obligation and duty to her. There is every chance you will grow to love her intensely as she grows up, she will bring you a great deal of joy (and heartache).

Nolovehere - you are very brave!

I was raised by a non-birth family that cared for, but didn't love, me. I was made to feel tolerated.

Should you choose to keep your DD, please don't let her know you ever had any doubts that you loved her. This is a really big thing.... :(

I have 3 ds and certainly don't have an instinctive mother bond with one of them. Love comes with time and even if the child is biologically yours there is no guarantee you will get the "rush".

I think you are being very thoughtful to explore your feelings and worry about the consequences.
Your post reminded me in away of posts some people make about their partners that they worry they don't love them enough that there was no rush ect. Sometimes there is not that initial rush but a love that builds up over time,and it is no less stronger.
Imagine how you will feel if you send her back i think you may be underestimating how attached you actually are to her. Could you live with the guilt ? You sound lovely and very caring. Whatever you decide am sure you will make the best decision for you dd as you will have given it so much thought.

1. I used to feel a horrific guilt because when my DCs were younger I knew without a shadow of a doubt which of my children I would grab first in a house fire. It has evened out now and I don't feel like that, but it took 3 years to sort itself out and it was a secret I couldn't share with anyone at the time. I suspect I am not alone. Some children take a long time to bond with, no matter how lovely they may be.

2. I am adopted and my DBs are both my DM's biological children. No matter what they may say to the contrary, I have always been convinced that they love me more than my DBs and they have sort-of admitted this at times. But they sure as hell had to work harder with me when I was a child.

I remember watching a documentary about several adoptions, filmed over a long period (a year or two?). Your post reminded me very much of one of the mothers featured there, who expressed herself very much the way you did -- she did not think that she loved her adopted daughters (a sibling pair who had been placed with them), didn't have a "motherly rush" and thought that the adoption might have been a hideous mistake as she wasn't generally a very maternal person.

Then one of the girls fell very seriously ill I don't remember the details, but meningitis or very serious pneumonia or something like that requiring urgent hospitalisation and being unclear for several weeks what the end result would be and she surprised herself by the rush of feeling that came up then, when she was put on the spot and realised how much she had grown to love the girls without really being aware of it. It just really hadn't felt like she expected it to feel until the relationship was put under stress.

I have no idea whether you are in the same position she was or not, but there are certainly plenty of birth mothers who don't get that rush-of-love feeling for some time (just as there are some adoptive mothers who get it very quickly). Look at all the mothers who have posted here who had nine months of pregnancy to bond with and fall in love with their babies and still took months or a year after the birth to get the "rush of love". Six months really seems like very little time.