Deep breath. That sentence seems so innocuous but it’s so loaded with emotion and tension it’s positively palpable. It feels like most of my adult life that I have wanted another child and after years of IVF with it’s tens of thousands of dollars spent, and years of constant failure with it’s heavy emotional toil that nearly cost our marriage. After everything we went through, all those terribly dark years and all that physical and emotional damage, I can’t believe that a friend came here asking me to take care of a little baby girl that needs a home… and I don’t want her.
The situation is just too convoluted, too unknown, too complex, too volatile, too uncertain, too depressing and just too hard. This child has been born to a young woman with known psychological problems who has worked as a stripper and a prostitute and is known to use serious illegal drugs, and a man with a history of drug abuse, violence and child abuse (this based on what little information I have been given so far). The poor little mite has spent the first months of her life ingesting various psychopathic drugs in utero (lithium for starts) and most of her gestation being bombarded with nicotine, alcohol and potentially other recreational drugs and substances… this is not someone who took her perinatal vitamins and attended regular natal checkups. She comes from a family with a history of Aspergers, biopolar disorder, chronic depression, agoraphobia and physical and emotional abuse. This little girl really needs the best start in life humanly possible. At present she is barely a couple of months old and the doctors have given her a clean bill of health (no known heart defects common with first trimester lithium use) but who knows what physical, emotional and mental challenges she will face throughout her development in the future.
What complicates this proposal to raise and nurture the child even further is that we know both the infant’s mother and grandmother, socially. I’ve known the Mum since she was a problem child of 12 herself… always the tearaway who never had a stable home environment, and I have known the grandmother for nearly 15 years now. Even should the mother be persuaded to give the baby up for adoption – thereby negating any access issues – we would encounter them on social occasions and it would be difficult (negligent even?) to keep the child from forming relationships with her biological family. Should the mother not agree to allow the child to be permanently adopted then it would be a long term foster proposal… which means frequent contact and going through the motions of dealing with the Dept of Community Services for supervised visits, or worse dealing with external social pressure to allow them access and visitation outside of those deemed necessary/appropriate by the Dept liaison officers. And then of course, should the poor little baby’s seemingly clueless mother decide to ditch the violent, abusive partner and claim to have cleaned up her life and want her child back… the baby would be torn from the life we created for her to be handed back to her mother who could potentially fail to cope entirely seeing the baby bouncing back and forth, back and forth with no stability and security until she reaches adulthood.
The whole thing sounds like a disaster looking for a place to happen. 🙁
And now I feel like an awful, horrid and heartless person lacking in true compassion or empathy for this poor little baby in need of a loving home. I have wanted for ever so long to have another child… these last 11 years at least. I have tried for so long and felt like such a failure, and nearly sent us to financial ruin to try and achieve that goal and here is someone saying to me ‘please take this helpless little baby girl and make her your own’… and I just can’t.
It’s obvious to me that I want MY child. Mine and my husband’s baby, to love and to nurture and to have a loving and fruitful adult relationship with one day. And I feel selfish and horrible for even admitting it.
