Two separated mums with one 7 year old daughter.

[KM5]

Hi,

So, I am the non-bio mum of a 7 year old daughter. I separated from her bio mum 4 years ago. Our daughter has always known that she doesn’t have a ‘dad’ but until now we haven’t approached explaining to her how or why etc.

We are very soon going to read a relevant book to her and talk about the involvement of a donor in her creation…any advice on what to say would be greatly received??

A massive concern of mine is how to explain or help my daughter understand how I am just as much her mum as her bio mum. She has always known that ‘other mummy carried her in her tummy’ but my involvement I feel is going to be unclear and hard to understand.

I’m not sure if there will be anyone on here in a similar situation but any advice (kind words) would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Hi I'm sorry no one has replied to you.

I don't have any experience of this, but its so important for you that you make sure your daughter knows you are just as much her mum as bio mum.

Focus on all the other stuff you did for her, and your role in supporting ex whilst she carried, helped pick the donor, drove ex to all the appointments, was there at the birth etc....

We have a book called 'love makes a family'.... it has loads of different types of family set ups, so can normalise your situation.

Good luck x

Thankyou very much for taking the time to send me this message, I really appreciate that it. Thankfully my ex and I are on better terms currently ahead of getting together with our daughter to have the conversation :). We have had a phonecall to talk over what we want to say etc which is very positive.

But definitely, I think it will be key to explain about my consistent presence and support throughout the pregnancy and prior to the pregnancy. Fingers crossed our daughter is able to process the information over time, especially knowing how much she has always been loved and will continue to be.

I only just saw this - and you may have had your talk already!

I am curious why you never discussed this before, and for me that'd be a key factor in figuring out how to talk about it now. I have never come across same-sex couples who didn't simply let their child 'grow up with' the knowledge. My DD is 7 and my ex and I separated recently, so I very much feel some of the anxieties you must be feeling. But we were advised very strongly by the clinic who treated us that it was important that the knowledge should never come as a huge revelation, so we've always talked casually about her donor and about which of us was pregnant.

The thing I have found works for me is framing things as memories she can take on and share. So I will sometimes talk about what it was like when we did the scan where we saw the egg that became her, or how we chose the donor (because he sounded so nice!). The other day she was talking about how tiny her baby niece is, and we talked about how I have known her since she was even tinier, a tiny little spot on a monitor.

I think it helps her to visualise how both of us have been there all the way through.

Hi,

Thankyou for this response...I must admit, this was never how I intended our daughter to gain the full understanding about her existence. I wish our clinic at the time had given more advice like yours did on the subject but at the end of the day, it's on us and I don't excuse that...I really dislike that it had to become such an organised 'sit down' revelation but somehow that's where we got to. Perhaps we would have started when she was younger had we not split, I don't know. Now we will simply have to support our daughter going forward and be more open about the donor's involvement.

Thankfully, the part I think we did (and have done in the past) get right was the continued explanation about how it was my ex who carried her and gave birth to her. We reiterated how I was the one who first saw her when she was born and took care of her whilst in the hospital due to my ex being extremely sore post birth and bed bound at first.

With regard to the split in general - we have always just ensured that we tell our daughter how much we both love her despite us as parents not being together anymore. Even now, after 4 years, our daughter will question why we had to split up and how she wishes we were together. I think this is sometimes due to the frustration of having to share her time between two homes and with two families. In these moments I just say over and over how much she is loved and how that will never change. I always explain that how her other mummy and I can be better parents because we are happier apart (and both with new partners). - hope this helps a little with some of your anxieties.

That's really poor of your clinic! I am shocked by that - as I understand it, it's a legal requirement to talk to you about this stuff. We ducked out of some of the mandatory counselling (and you're not meant to be able to do that), and even so, we were told very firmly that we were required to sit and listen to some advice, even if we chose not to take it.

I don't think you should say it's all on you. It's really hard to find the roadmap when you have a child in a same-sex relationship. Especially when you are in the middle of the actual job of parenting!

I can absolutely see how the split made it harder to have the conversation, too!

Your DD sounds very lucky. I am sure she will grow up knowing how loved she is, and that's the big thing, isn't it?!