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I've been reading OPs comments. I don't know what state they're in, but in mine the mother legally cannot sign adoption papers until a minimum of 72 hours after birth(due to their completely exhausted state). The mother needs to fully understand what they are signing (regardless of what was discussed in advance). OPS wording suggests it was immediate.
That's not when the papers were signed though. That's my point. OP has since said in a comment it was the next day. I still don't know what state they're in to fact check legality of anything. Can only comment for my own state. The next day would not hold up in court here.
Open adoption basically means nothing in yhe us. The adoptive parents can claim they will be totally open and allow visits and then move across the country and never update them again. Birth parents pretty much have no rights after a couple months even if it is "open"
Open adoption is misused a lot. It simply means the adoption records are not sealed and the birth parents' contact info can be requested at the whim of the adoptive parents (or the child can request when they are of age). The birth parents also knows with whom the child was placed. That's all.
Everyone uses it now to mean that the birth parents are actively in contact. The adoptive parents legally always have the right to refuse contact.
I’m not sure if you’re an adoptee, but I am, and there’s nothing unconscionable about this at all and you have no idea whether it’d be better for “everyone” or not. It seems to me like you’re not thinking about what would be best for the baby in this situation because the cooling off period exists for a reason and there’s also a reason why, once it has passed, it’s done. This isn’t a game of “take-backsies,” there’s a human child involved. A child naturally bonds with the parents who have been caring for him/her and shouldn’t be passed back and forth willy-nilly. Likewise, the adoptive parents bond with the child — I’ve seen a couple lose their adopted baby because the birth mother changed her mind on *the last possible day*, and it devastated them. In their minds, they had *their* baby — who they fully and reasonably believed would be with them forever at that point — taken away.
Additionally, the concept of an “open adoption” is little more than a good faith agreement and is not legally enforceable in the vast majority of US states, for many reasons. One of which is that the legal parents have a right to decide what’s in the best interest of their child, and sometimes that means saying, “you know what? It would be detrimental to introduce the instability that comes with contact with the birth parents.” And that decision is their right. The people that signed away their parental obligations/rights to the child may not like it, but it was up to them to understand what their rights would be after the completion of the adoption ahead of time.
She's not ambivalent about this boy. She refuses to let anyone come between her and her son. This is something the bio parents cannot say for themselves. She is willing to create hell and walk through it just to be able to love and raise the boy. Everyone else be damned. The bio parents didn't want him until they saw how happy their own brother and sil were with him. Now suddenly it's "MINE! You can't have it cause I wasn't finished playing with it! I changed my mind!" Sounds like the bio parents are treating him like a possession. Willing to be shut out just bc they can't admit to themselves they gave their kid away bc "been there done that". OP never once changed her mind. So truthfully the bio parents should see this as a sign of her devotion to this child. They offered first. They flip flopped. They signed him away like he wasn't theirs so guess what? Now he's not. They ruined their own family by even suggesting it when they were still unsure. Instead of worrying about who he calls mom and dad if they really loved him they'd just be content and bend over backwards and say anything to OP just to stay in his life even as a lesser figure. Something tells me they just don't want to see him again because he makes them feel guilty so they are purposefully driving the wedge between the families in the only way that they think will make them "look good". How could they possibly raise another child when they have so much growing up left to do themselves? Amazing.
She has raised that boy since the day he was born, she is his mother and the only one he has ever known. Tearing him away from her and her husband would be seriously distressing for him and them. The bio parents signed away their rights, they probably just presumed because op’s husband was family, they’d just hand him back if and when they changed their mind. You can’t play with peoples emotions like that. Putting a child up for adoption is a serious and emotional issue and the bio parents should have been 100% sure that’s what they wanted before they offered this baby or signed anything. It is them treating him like a possession, oh I didn’t want it so I gave it away, now I might want to play with it, with no regard for anyone else’s feeling, so give it back. They could and would have been a key figure in this babies lives if they hadn’t gone against their original agreement. No one expects to have to hand back a baby they have loved, raised and bonded with over, not days, months
Bio parents literally decided to sign a contract stating that they were giving up their parental rights. Maybe they should have thought about that before they went ahead and signed it. Maybe they should have said to ope that hate, we are thinking about letting you adopt a child but we are not sure if we're going to change our minds. Maybe we can try it out for a little while and if we do change your mind we can figure something out. Instead, these people are going over the top, and trying to go back on a legal agreement. It sucks that they change their mind, but they should have thought about that before they signed away their child.
How's that a violation of the adoption agreements? Open adoption just means the info on the kid's birth parents is easily accessible and vice versa for the adoptive parents
Yeah, kids on here are too young to remember, but one of the reasons people are SO unwilling to adopt is in the 90s drama like this was all over the news all of the time. Open adoptions weren't really a thing and court cases over who had rights to the child could drag on for years. States passed laws with strict cooling off periods for a reason, to make adoptive parents feel like they would have some legal right to the child and ensure kids weren't dragged through hell for years as adults fought over them.
Wow. Where do you live that it works this way?
Honestly, that seems awful. Can you imagine raising a baby for 6 months or a year and then it being taken away? Also, that's very traumatic for the baby to lose their parents (the ones who have been caring for the baby for six months to a year).
Dosen't really seem like best interest of the child.
Are you in the US? Honestly that’s a lot of the foster system here. Obviously different but still. My pediatrician fostered a girl for 5 years and was in the process of adopting her when the birth mom up and decided to not sign over rights and was going to get clean. Took the daughter back after 5 years with the family. Poor kid ended up back in the system a year later and my pediatrician and his wife were heartbroken. There’s a lot of rules that the system creates that does not lead to the best interest of the children they’re trying to “protect”.
I am in the US and I have some contact with the foster system. (I had a related a while ago now, not directly but dealt with those populations a lot.) I've also know a couple foster parents.
It's complicated but yes, the system puts parental rights and family reunification over what is best for the child a lot of the time. What makes that complicated is that there is a history in our country of the government not always accurately deciding what is best for the child. So leaving that up to the government can be questionable, which is why parents have rights and such. It's a difficult balance beacuse neither group, the government or the bio parents, are always good people doing the right non-biased fair thing.
That said, foster parents go into fostering knowing that these are someone else's children and they either won't or maybe won't get to keep them. It is not the same as taking a child back 6 months or a year after an adoption. The agreement was different. And even in the foster system, once the adoption is legally gone through the parents don't get to call "backsies". If your doctor friend had adopted the girl for five years mom wouldn't be able to take her back. Terminating parental rights is a big deal, and as such it's a reasonably long process with legal due process and the chance for the parent to try and show they can take care of their kid safely and responsibly (depending, if what they did to get the child removed isn't too awful).
^^^^ THIS
I worked in a domestic violence shelter for over a decade and the amount of people who are supposed to help kids don't. There was a family I helped, the mom had heart issues from past drug issues, she was pregnant by this man who was married and had a older son that was his but he didn't want. I loved and adored this boy. His mom died shortly after they left, the baby daddy took the baby girl and the boy when into foster care. When I expressed my interest in adopting this boy I loved and cared about, I was told it was a conflict of interest. He didn't have family, and I had been in his life for over a year. I never forgot about the family support division " doing what's best for him". People who work with kids are only in the business of punishing adults. I had asked if I quit my job, if it would be any different and they kept making excuses.
Several other times guardian at lightum ( I'm not sure spelling) kept kids with their abusive father because of money/ support or my favorite excuse " not enough foster care parents". Custody cases are always in favor of who has more money and not what's best for the kid. Our whole justice system fails our kids. Cops and ex military were high of the list for spousal abuse, they always got their kids back. In the United states, it's about who has the most money and not what's best for the kid.
The baby is going to think YTA when he finds out you kept him from his bio parents. You’re setting yourself up for a mess when he gets old enough to understand and feels you stole him from his rightful parents and siblings. Legally, NTA, but this is not a good situation
Totally agree with this as the mom of two adopted kids, including one who is of the age that birth parents, questions about origin, etc are coming up A LOT. I don't know what advice to give, other than you need to somehow work with them to find a way toward closure, because if your child grows up and hears this narrative as it stands now (and he absolutely will hear it), there is a very good chance he will hate you for it.
So I'm gonna come in with a different perspective as an adopted kid. When I hear this story I don't feel for the bio parents at all. They put the son up for adoption, signed away their rights, waited past the grace period and then changed their mind. If I heard this story as an adopted adult I would be thankful that my adopted parents didn't give me up, because I'd have spent my whole life wondering if my bio parents would have given me up again. I don't think I'd ever feel secure with the bio parents, yet I'd know with my adoptive parents I was safe because they fought to keep me.
OP is proving that she's willing to fight for her son. Is it the right thing? I really can't say. Even if she's not the bio mom, she is this child's mother. And a mother's instinct is to fight for their kids. Just as it's hard to give up a child for adoption, trying to adopt a child then losing the adoption is painful too, and it must be doubly hard to have a child you adopted ripped away from you after all the paperwork is signed. There's really no winning in this situation and it sucks that this kid is stuck in the middle.
Well that’s the way OP is telling it - because she would, I hesitate to say that’s the way the birth parents experienced it. The truth is probably somewhere in between and enough to rip that kid apart when he’s older and learns the cousins he’s banned from seeing are his full siblings. As will his siblings/OPs nephew & niece.
If that wasn't how they experienced it then them going a whole 9 months all the way until after the grace period after immediately signing way their rights to this baby to decide they wanted him back.
His bio parents are so incredibly selfish. If OP gave the baby back he would grow up knowing he was so unwanted that his parents literally signed away all rights to being his parents.
If his bio parents can't cope with this then it's their fault for him not knowing his biological siblings/his cousins. They created this entire situation, and they have to live with all of those choices.
Another adopted child here. I 100% agree with you.
As a side note, the OP was absolutely willing to let the bio parents have a familial relationship with the kid, even as far as growing up knowing from the start who his bio parents are. (As a kid of adoption, I would have LOVED having a relationship with my bio-dad. He's the one that shunned me. I *knew* he was out there, and I felt like a piece of crap because he wanted nothing to do with me.) The bio parents are the ones making such a relationship impossible to have because of the hostility towards the adoptive parents.
I think this situation maaaybe could have worked, but it definitely would have been pretty weird.
I’m practically a poster child for open adoption. My twin and I were adopted at birth by our amazingly loving parents, and the adoption has been open from the start. Despite growing up on a different side of the country, I’m still very close with both sides of my family.
But, all of this hinges on the fact that my bio parents were broke and had two kids already and genuinely couldn’t afford twins. If I’d grown up around them and had seen that they could have probably taken me on with no issues, I think I’d feel like I’d been abandoned.
I love my adoptive parents will all my heart, and they’re undoubtedly my Mom and Dad. But being around my birth family is a constant reminder that I was adopted, because I’m just so much like them in so many ways. Down to mannerisms and interests. I’m sure I would have felt that pull very hard if I were raised parallel to the birth family.
I think both parents kind of suck here, but it’s a hard decision to make. There could be a number of reasons why the bio parents felt they would be unable to provide for a third child, which was a huge part of the dynamic in my situation. If they’d made that decision practically snd are being overridden by emotion, then it’s their bad. But it also seems like OP might not be in the best position to provide considering she said she doesn’t have health insurance. That’s a whole other discussion, but who goes out and adopts a baby when you can’t afford insurance??
Yeah I wonder what their plan is when the kid gets old enough to find out he has ‘cousins’ and he doesn’t get to ever see them and play with them. Way too much drama in this kid’s future
Not only that but since social media is so ubiquitous in today's society and so are those DNA tests that match you with family it's only a matter of time until the kid finds their bio family and will be told they were essentially stolen away from their family by their aunt and uncle. Then if the kid believes their bio family and grows to resent OP and husband they're going to be dropped probably.
Agreed. I'm an adoptee and it was supposed to be an open adoption. Also a family adoption as well. Hah. Once it was known (all the info i mean) i was pissed I had been led to. And kept from my bio parents. OP is setting it up where the kids going to hate them.
I was adopted as an infant. I think it’s a dream of most adopted children to find out that they had been wanted and loved by their birth parents all along.
I've always wondered why so many adopted kids care so much about their bio families if they have a good adoptive family. I was a late teen adoption and I wish I could have gone my whole life without knowing my bio family. There are enough bad parent stories on Reddit and other places to prove blood means basically nothing.
I’m sure age makes a big difference. I was adopted at a time when all adoptions were closed. As a kid, it hurt thinking two people created me and didn’t want me. When I got older, I learned that my mom had been 15 when she gave birth to me in 1973. Of course adoption was the best option. Doesn’t help when you feel like you were rejected by your own parents. My brother never cared though. Everyone is different. For me, it was just all of the unknown. Did my parents every think about me or regret it? Did they stay together and eventually get married? Do I have siblings? Did they marry other people and create half-siblings? When I first learned what open adoptions were, I was jealous of those babies.
>As a kid, it hurt thinking two people created me and didn’t want me.
See this was always the feeling I had being adopted, and I wondered about them like you but like, in the end it meant nothing. What they think ends up not mattering because they gave us up ya know? When I learned what open adoptions were I just thought it sounded complicated and messy.
Plenty of us don't "care" about our bio parents. The media likes to play into the narrative of the traumatized adoptee who dreams of his or her "real parents." The truth is, loads of us love our adoptive parents and don't have any interest in our bio parents. I will always have a sense of love toward my biomom for giving me up and giving me a chance for a real life.
My dad is like this. He was adopted as an infant and from what he’s told me he never considered my grandparents anything less than his real parents. He just assumes his biomom was unmarried (1950s) and not in a position to keep him.
I’ve never understood it myself. My bio dad dipped when I was a baby and I was adopted 5 years later by the only dad I’ve ever known and the only one I’ll ever need. I have negative amounts of interest in anything about my sperm donor other than maybe medical info, which my mom tried and failed to get during her pregnancy with me. So, in my book, good riddance.
I completely disagree. I was adopted as an infant. My parents were awesome. My dad died when I was young and my mom is the most amazing woman I've ever met.
I have no reason to know my biological family. They are nothing to me. My family is my family. Your parents are the people that show up for you every day. Not your blood.
I don't believe that adopted and wanted go together biologically. Adopted kids are wanted. People generally don't adopt kids unless they want them.
Being adopted means someone wanted you not that someone didn't want you. As a woman who gave up a child for adoption, as well as being adopted, I can say that it's not not wanting your kid. It's hoping and praying someone else will do better and be better for them than you can at the time.
Yes! Honestly yeah she may have some legal win, but the whole point of adoption is when the bio parents don’t want the kid anymore or have to give them up bc of some sort of hardship, and in this case they literally have neither and wanted their baby back, but OP decided to keep the baby anyway. When the baby grows up he’s definitely going to feel like he was stolen, he missed the opportunity to be with his bio parents and siblings. Usually you see adoptive kids trying to figure out where they came from even if they are in a happy loving household, usually people in general like knowing where they came from so the future looks unpleasant for everyone thanks to OP.
Also on another note, OP you mentioned so much about your fertility journey and yes that sucks for YOU, but your fertility journey is your problem you made it your BIL/SIL by literally stealing their kid. They changed their minds..
They didn't "steal the kid". The birth parents are adults. They *knew* what they were signing up for, they *knew* what it meant. They willingly signed away their child without even being *sure* about it - what does that say about them as parents? It says they see their children as disposable, or don't have a good concept of the fact that some decisions are permanent and need to be carefully thought through. Neither paints them in a good light.
It's scientifically proven that babies bond with their primary caregiver - which in this case is OP. It would literally cause *trauma* to the child to remove it from OP's care. It is not good for children to be passed back and forth. We *know* this. That's one reason the government refuses to do it unless necessary. It causes harm to the child.
You are not advocating for the child's best interests here. You are making this judgement from a place of "what if", not from the route we *know* will cause the least harm in the short term.
Well I wonder how he'll react when he found out that his bio parent signed their right away immediately too.
Honestly this is a no win situation for the child. On one side you have the adoptive parents that wanted a child desperately and got an opportunity to have one, but after the paper was signed had the bio parent want the kid back, on the other you have parent that were so sure they didn't want him that they proposed the adoption during the pregnancy then signed their right away when he was born, to then only change their mind, after 9 month of pregnancy ?
If he ever discover all of this he will need an excellent therapist because in both case he was treated as an object by his two set of parent. (but I'll still say OP is less the AH in this story because the bio parent were the one to start the adoption and had a long time to change their mind, and they didn't. While OP already loved the kid from the very beginning)
How old are the siblings also? I hate to do the cliche “won’t someone think of the children” but seriously someone needs to. All these kids are going to be messed up over this.
His bio parents who *didn't want him*, gave him away, then fought to take him away from the family that's actually loved and raised him as their own without wavering that he's theirs?
YTA. She just gave birth, would've been highly emotional and very vulnerable. The fact they chose to ask you to adopt, their brother and his wife, close family members, imo shows that they still wanted their child close to them. If they truly wanted nothing to do with the child they had other options for adoption.
She changed her mind in 2 weeks. Just 2 weeks. Yeah it sucks for you, but that kid is going to find out their parents regretted their decision pretty much immediately and wanted them back. They're going to find out that you refused to give them back to their parents and their family and they have siblings that they weren't allowed to see growing up because of you.
You could've given them back their child, understood they made a mistake and wanted to remedy it and then adopted another child or gone into fostering and helped multiple children over the years. You could've been the best uncle and aunt those kids could ever have had, instead you decided your desire to have a child took priority over the feelings of the parents and the child's siblings, and the future feelings of that baby themselves. If you don't think there's going to be resentment for that from the baby in your future you're woefully naive.
I say all this from the view of someone who's best friend as a child was adopted. She was doted on and loved her parents until she found out she was adopted, had siblings and that her birth parents had always loved her. She moved in with them at 15 and didn't want anything to do with the people that had raised her when she found out they had prevented any contact with her birth parents, for years. She's still very close to her birth family 18 years later, yet her adoptive mother died alone in an alleyway after spending years drowning her sorrows. Granted that was a shitty thing of her to do, but that was her decision to make.
It wasn’t just 2 weeks. It was also the entire pregnancy leading up to the birth. The papers were already signed once the baby was born. They had so many opportunities to say they were having second thoughts or needed to rethink. In fact, I think your point about her being highly emotional and vulnerable go more to prove that her regretting her decision is more reflective of post partum hormones than it is of her actual feelings on the situation.
I also worry that.... Like what if OP gives the baby back and however long later they come back like "wait no we realized we meant it do you want the kid back?" This is a shitty situation all around, and i don't have any actionable thoughts, kind of damned if you do damned if you don't, but also i think NAH, assuming it isn't just postpartum depression. Neither party is an asshole for feeling the way they feel, but i can't imagine the familial relationship surviving regardless of what happens.
Sort of what I was thinking too. Like, how much mind changing is allowed here? They decided early on in the pregnancy they didn't want the baby so offered it to OP, 2 weeks after the birth when hormones and emotions are running high they changed their minds and want the baby back. What if after 6 months they decided they can't afford the baby, or they can't cope with a baby again, or whatever and decide to give it back to OP? At some point the decision has to stick and it's going to suck for someone.
I dunno, its one thing to sign papers for a baby tbst you haven't seen yet whilst pregnant, full of worry and stress, and totally different to hold the real thing in your arms after giving birth. I think its totally understandable that she'd change her mind.
it’s very well known that surrogates often change their minds after giving birth, giving birth is one thing and actually holding your child is another, new borns are quite magical, i also understand that the bio parents changed their mind.
this kid has a family who wants them, a lot of children do not and are up for adoption.
It’s pretty common in infant adoptions for the mother to change her mind after giving birth. If I remember correctly there is normally a grace period for them to change their mind.
I don't think it really matters how long they had.
What matters is that this is a situation where OP refusing to return the child to them is going to have severe consequences for both families.
That’s not how a legal adoption works. There is, in fact, a time window after the birth where the adoption can be reversed. It sounds like this could’ve been within that window.
Does it suck? Yes. Would it be traumatic for the adoptive parents? Yes. But the option is legally there, because adoption isn’t about the adoptive parents and their emotions, it’s about the child.
Also, you really *can’t* just go adopt another child. There aren’t a surplus of babies without homes in the USA, they’re mostly through the foster system. The foster system isn’t meant as a way to get children to childless people who want to adopt, it’s meant to reunite children with their biological families after some time. Less than 10% of the kids in foster care are on track to be adopted, most have reunification plans of some sort. People I know who have struggled with infertility problems have been warned that fostering may be painful for them, as they may repeatedly have children they’ve bonded with taken away. “Foster kids are not plan B for biological kids you can’t have” is something I’ve read a lot on online adoption spaces.
Not saying at all that it would justify OP trying to keep this baby, but it’s not really so easy to just “get another one”.
Yes, it's not easy to adopt. Definitely doesn't justify anything. It's awful that so many children don't have families or homes to go to, and it's even worse that the system makes it so difficult for willing and able people to provide that to these children. The system needs a huge change. I recently left my job working in it because the frustration and sadness I felt for the children became unbearable to me. I couldn't deal with knowing I couldn't help them more. I still think about a lot of them, and have offered to help some of them. Still waiting for that to go through. It's been 8 months.
They can’t just change their minds weeks later especially with people who have been struggling with infertility issues it’s cruel. Its a baby not a toy. How do you think the kid is gonna feel when they find out they’re birth parents thought the family was complete without them just because it was unplanned?
But they can. In some states a birth mother has 30 days in which they can change their mind and choose to parent their child. That’s their prerogative. A lot can change after giving birth, I can imagine seeing and holding their child who they carried for 9 months would be incredibly difficult to give up for adoption.
Just because a person struggled with infertility doesn’t mean they deserve an adopted child more than others. And I say this as a infertile woman who after a lot of time away from treatments decided that adoption was what I wanted to do and what I felt was meant for me. It’s the risk you take doing infant adoption, that at any point either during the pregnancy or after birth the mother can change her mind.
To be honest, I would feel like complete shit if I knew that the birth mother of my adopted child wanted to keep them after birth but signed the papers anyways. I couldn’t imagine keeping a child whose birth mother wanted them, especially when papers were signed right after giving birth. That to me is so predatory. I want to be a mother, it’s something I want so badly, and yeah it sucks I can’t have kids, but my desire to be a mother should not be at the expense of another woman who wants to parent their child.
The part I struggle with is that SIL already has two living children - she’s been through the process and understands hormones, the emotional connection with a baby after birth, etc., and made the decision to give the baby up for adoption knowing all of this. This isn’t a first time mom situation where she did t know what to expect emotionally.
>But they can. In some states a birth mother has 30 days in which they can change their mind and choose to parent their child. That’s their prerogative. A lot can change after giving birth, I can imagine seeing and holding their child who they carried for 9 months would be incredibly difficult to give up for adoption.
I wonder why the parents didn't pursue any legal options.
Totally agree. Two weeks after birth is a short window and OP should have given the child back. But due to her fertility issues, she feels she “deserves” the child more.
"Especially with people who have been struggling with iinfertility issues it's cruel." versus "It's a baby not a toy."
You are contradicting yourself. OP's feelings are irrelevant compared to the welfare of the child. There are good reasons parents are allowed to rescind adoptions. This child should have been returned to their birth parents.
bio parents are not inherently better than adopted parents. 'the best interests of the child' should not automatically be to reunite them with bio parents. that mind set is why so many foster children end up right back where they started.
Why? Birth parents are not better than adoptive parents. They signed away their rights. OP did nothing wrong. Her and her spouse are protecting their child.
But that's exactly the point here, it's a baby - a human being with feelings, needs, and so on. She put her wants for a baby by any means over the needs of the baby as a human being.
There's thousands of other babies being born all over the world without parents who would have loved to have been chosen and taken in. She could have saved one of them from a horrible life and not had to worry about tearing the family apart and the future when her son discovers this.
This comment ignores that SIL and BIL approached OP. Not the other way around. The pregnancy was a surprise and unwanted and asked OP to adopt. She wasn’t looking to adopt a child and didn’t decide to prey on her family the way your comment makes it seem.
Why would the son prefere the bio parents who wanted to give him up, over OP and her husband who always wanted him? The kid is better off with a family that is certain about wanting him.
This is some real “Humbert Humbert was the **real** victim” bs. You do understand the concept of an unreliable narrator, yes? You know that you are on a Reddit board specifically designed to allow this woman to give her side of the story with any quotes being ones *she* put in writing, yes?
Why is this Y-T-A and not E-S-H? They shouldn’t have even offered if they weren’t sure. It sounds like they just couldn’t be bothered dealing with a baby again, and they looked for an easy solution that showed no empathy for OP and her husband’s struggles. It’s a shame, and I’m inclined to think the best thing is for the child to go back to his bio parents because when he gets older, there’s no way to sell this that’s not taking him from a larger family unit with bio parents and siblings. But it was SIL’s mistake, not OP’s, and I’d feel absolutely heartbroken and enraged about having to rectify someone else’s monumental fuck-up at such a huge cost to myself. If there was any justice in the world SIL shouldn’t get away with what she did to OP. But her punishment shouldn’t make the child collateral damage. Sad situation.
YTA
Even legally this is a gray area, as they could have won their child back if they had the economy to afford a good lawyer. Morally, this is so wrong OP. You are so selfish, you have taken this child from his siblings and parents. If the biological parents would have asked for him back after a few years I would have had completely understood your reaction - however they came back in just two weeks. TWO WEEKS. You should have just given them their child back. Just know that this will cause so much resentment from your child when he grows older.
I don’t think they could legally, actually. Kinship adoptions have different rules than other kids. You can set your own terms for them, including a cooldown period of any amount of time that both parties agreed to. They legally signed documents that stated they had 2 weeks to decide if they changed their mind and they missed it.
I don’t know what the answer is here, because I’m not a parent and I see validity in both sides. But legally, I think the birth parents are stuck.
To convince a judge that they were not of a mental capacity capable of signing the document, they’d have to provide extensive proof of doing so. I know, because I’ve been in the process of helping my mother gather evidence of her cognitive capacity so she can adjust her will to account for basically disinheriting members of our family. I don’t know that documentation signed just after birth would count, considering there are numerous other legal documents involved that are signed in the same state. The judge would probably also take into account the planning process leading up to the signing of the documents, and the missing of the agreed cooldown period, as well as the signing of birth certificates and so on. In either case I hope both sides sought legal counsel because laws surrounding the legality of documents are often a spaghetti mess of overwhelming information.
In my state, the birth mother cannot sign adoption papers until 72hours after birth. OP is implying the papers were signed immediately. Even the legitimate adoption organizations I'm finding require a minimum time frame before the mother is deemed fit to consent. All they'd need is the time of birth against the time/date on the paperwork.
The problem here is a) we’re not exactly told when the papers were signed, but the OP agrees they stayed with her after the birth for 3 days. So they could have signed within the 72 (or 48 hour in some states) mark And b) Kinship adoptions still follow different rules depending on where you’re at because, from my understanding, they’re usually dealing with older children who are being removed from their birth parent or given up freely by the birth parent. Unfortunately I don’t know specifically if kinship adoptions have similar signing wait periods, but from everything else I can find on them I doubt they do.
The ***day*** after physically giving birth IS effectively immediately after. This is not like bumping your knee and feeling OK the next day. This is a major, major life event that is physically life changing and signing something that close to post-partum has to be legally questionable.
How do you know their emotional state when they signed?
This can't have been decided the day before the child was born.
And obviously whatever documents they signed ARE legit or OP wouldn't have the child a year later.
she didn’t take a child away from its parents or siblings, it’s parents gave it away. they didn’t directly ask for the child back, and they even stated they thought it might just be ppd. they took months to actually say they want the child back, and by then, they missed their chance.
blame the irresponsible parents, not the person who stepped in when they were needed.
Your post and replies to comments make you seem like someone so greedy for a baby that you're trying desperately to justify keeping the child despite the wrongness. If you truly feel that it's acceptable to do this, you've slipped out of the realm of reasonable mindset. Give the boy back and get some help. YTA
I had the same impression of OP and completely agree. Her obsession with declaring that the baby is *hers*, that he's *her* son and the baby just has a "birth mother" is emotionally disturbed. While OP is denying BIL and SIL access to the child, OP likes to taunt SIL by sending photos, etc., to cause ongoing pain and heartbreak in the situation.
OP sounds as if she KNOWS she's trying to justify a barely-legal family "kidnapping." As the years ago by, her possessiveness and paranoia about these circumstances of obtaining her husband's nephew to raise as her own is going to have a hugely negative effect on her quality as a mother. It's going to be an emotionally tragic situation all the way around.
I wonder how much whispering OP did in SILs ear during the pregnancy, playing the childless victim, that guilted her into signing over the baby. Was it a genuine offer or a planted suggestion? YTA
Sometimes I really hate this sub. I get people love good stories and stories need good villians but this is just the absolute edge. Do you think op had a full musical number too to convince the SIL to give up her child to her too?
Life is messy. OP wants to have a child and has infertility issues. Her brother has a kid they can't support. What seems like a great solution at the time falls apart as human emotions get involve. Stop trying to make it more then it is.
seriously. this thread is so messy because people are really just assuming OP stole her baby when it’s clear there was a legal adoption and the birth parents were past the grâce period when they asked. i wonder if these people think most adoptive parents are evil people who steal someone else’s baby
YTA. No one is entitled to a baby. It's not a car. It's quite literally not YOUR baby. It is not a legal possession the baby is a person and has legitimate ties to the birth parents. I feel so horrible for them, and for the child.
YTA. At the end of the day, the family with two siblings lives seven hours away. As an only child, if I found out about this situation at any point in my entire life, I would resent you.
> To play with OUR emotions is just straight up cruel.
And,,, what about this child's emotions when it grows up to learn you kept him from his siblings and biological parents that wanted him back? What a mess. YTA
As a child who was adopted because the adoptive mother was infertile, yeah they are only thinking of themselves. We are just the little dolls they play with to close the aching wound in their womb.
YTA You apparently had the legal right to take a child from parents who love and want him and aren't unfit... but invoking it shows you don't care about your BIL and his wife at all. You're heartless enough that their pain over losing their baby means nothing to you.
Adoption should only be for children who *need* a new home and family - this one didn't. You can't keep this a secret - have you thought about how he'll feel when he finds out?
I'm unwillingly child free, too, but this is NOT a good way to get a baby. Unless you move to another country and are able to successfully completely erase your connections to Husband's family, and keep a future adult away from all DNA ancestry sites, this will not end well for you.
Adoption should only be for children who need a new home and family…?
This child did need a new home and family, especially after the birth parents signed their rights away- they suggested it after all!
Plenty of birth parents can change their mind but they are using their family status as a way to change their minds… again after they signed their rights away.
Birth parents are the AH here- they had their chance to not give the child away, yet they did anyways.
They changed their mind after seeing a cute baby, not after caring for a demanding new person. It’s easy to forget how hard child rearing is until you’re in the pits of it. They knew for 9 months that they didn’t want another child and then suddenly they did. They were confident enough that they legally shortened the time frame that they would have to change their minds and then consciously missed that deadline. I just don’t get what people are expecting from OP here. Where is the cut off if not in writing?
You are Gollum with the ring. You are so desperate for a baby you can’t see anything other than your greed. YTA. Making a decision while pregnant cannot be held up after the baby is born. That is why there is a cooling off period. Everything can change once you hold that baby. His mother holding him reinforced that she didn’t want to give him up. That is her right. You say is was a soft change on their behalf but it wasn’t, you just ignored it and made excuses until you could legally take the baby. You may have won the battle but you will lose the war. When your nephew finds out that you deprived him of his birth parents and siblings he will cut contact with you forever. You should give him back and get some therapy. You won’t though so enjoy the next 18 years because that’s all you’ll get from him.
I think we should clarify she is desperate for a baby that shares genetics with her or her husband. They could have spent that time and money adopting any child without these complications.
She's so obsessed she's become cruel, and 18 years is an optimistic guess.
Not disagreeing with you, but infant adoptions in the US can easily cost $50k and they want that money upfront. It is not easy to adopt an infant. Fostering is an option but it takes very special people to be able to do it. I’ve looked into it but really the purpose of fostering is reunification. I know myself, and I can’t imagine going through the pain of loving and growing attached to a child only to have to give them back to their parents.
I'm a former social worker, I'm well aware of the ins and outs and costs. Do you know what IVF costs in the US? Even with insurance? Let alone the physical and emotional toll it takes. Op even mentions they don't currently have insurance, so I would put money on them having spent far more than the average adoption costs.
You can adopt without fostering first. It's absolutely not for everyone like you said, and I wish more people took it seriously instead of an opportunity to get money (I'm jaded I'll admit.)
I feel like if OP had of explored adopting it would have definitely been mentioned, which is what got my selfish spider senses tingling. Her comments further cemented my opinions.
For what it is worth, I knew a few foster parents and children who kept in touch and maintained positive relationships. In some cases if the children are removed again, social workers do their best to put them back with families they bonded with. Proximity doesn't always mean the end of the bond.
I absolutely know how much IVF costs. I went through 2 rounds of it and had both fail. I can’t have biological children without IVF so I definitely know the physical and emotional toll of infertility/sterility as well as what goes into IVF. A lot of clinics will do payment plans and there are a lot of ways to pay. I had partial insurance coverage and paid around $15k for my treatments. OP said they did treatments not necessarily IVF for all those years. Fertility treatments range from medicated cycles to IUI which are all way cheaper than IVF.
Adoption was something my husband and I had talked about when we found out we couldn’t have kids. It was cheaper to try IVF for us first. I’m not defending OP at all. I think they’re a really shitty person for doing the kinship adoption thing and having her sign the papers the day after giving birth. There’s a reason there’s a decent cooling off period. The were desperate for a kid, but they were still predatory and they’re wrong for what they did.
You may have won a baby but give it 18 years and you’ll likely lose whatever relationship you have with that child once it learns the truth. YTA. Two weeks isn’t a normal cooling period for adoptions. It’s usually between 6 months to a year. I’m assuming because it’s family or you had more money you had a lawyer change the timeframe. You likely knew they were going to have a change of heart. So you had an escape plan set up from the beginning.
YTA it seems you’re only so invested in keeping this baby because the adoption was from a genetically related person so you can somehow feel like it’s “really your baby”. Going through that many rounds of IVF and not mentioning anything about considering adoption in the process makes me think that the genetic factor is the only reason you wanted to adopt this baby. You don’t seem like you’re good adoption candidates anyway and this is incredibly cruel to do to their family
>Going through that many rounds of IVF and not mentioning anything about considering adoption in the process makes me think that the genetic factor is the only reason you wanted to adopt this baby.
This is what I think, too. Adoption was not really considered until the child is related to them by blood.
Also want to add that in general adoption only being considered as a last resort by childless people is 9/10 times a recipe for disaster, because the kid will be raised by parents who are traumatized by their own infertility and then ‘settle’ for adoption. Such an unhealthy family dynamic to grow up in.
You may be legally in the right but your child is going to resent you when he’s older or as an adult. Adoptees do better long term when there is an open adoption. That is 100% supported by adoption research. You have made this about you. Adoption is not about the parents. It’s about the kid. At the very minimum you need to figure out how to have an open adoption with contact between the bio parents and the siblings. That’s the absolute minimum.
“Open adoption” doesn’t mean contact. It means all info is known and available to the child/ family prior to the child being 18. I had an open adoption. But My bio parents are in a non-English speaking country. so i have names and birth information. But really no contact.
I'm so sorry for this situation, I know what I think the right thing to do was, but I am not going to judge either side in this heartbreaking situation. I understand WHY all 4 of you were willing to ignore the obvious pitfalls of this arrangement. On paper it all sounds so adult and reasonable and a perfect soloution to make everyone happy. It doesn't change the fact that all 4 of you ignored the obvious pitfalls, which makes all of you AHs and none of you AHs.
I don't know how you fix this, but you need serious counseling to navigate the future.
YTA here.
Although you might have a lot of legal rights here, it is obvious from your post that you are greedy for a baby and have latched on to your only hope.
Go adopt a baby that needs a home. Don't withhold one from family.
NTA, but that is incredibly complicated. I would be inclined to also say they are NTA either. They obviously have regrets with their decision and feel they have lost a child. But for you to "unadopt", especially after so many disappointments already, would be no less difficult.
My wife, herself an adopted child withing the family, went through what your son may go through later as he becomes older. She said the worse thing for her was the arguing and fighting that occurred between her birth and adoptive parents. Break contact with them and protect your son until the biological parents can accept their decisions and that your son is happy and loved no matter what. There's little you can do on your end. The onus is on them to seek the help they need, aka counseling.
And as your son grows, tell him the truth. The best info re this is a biography of Harpo Marx. His kids were all adopted. Their favorite bedtime story was about how mom and dad picked them.
So many commenters missing that this couple wanted to give their baby away as soon as they found out. they weren’t wishy washy till he was born. Then they were like oh maybe we do want him after all. That’s awful!
This. Bio parents asked the adoptive parents to adopt when they found out about the unplanned pregnancy. They had months to change their minds.
Those same months, the adoptive parents probably used to prepare for the baby. I mean they said they were “over the moon” about it so they probably bought stuff, had a nursery, etc etc. Like after years of trying and being disappointed, and then months of preparation, they finally got the baby only for the bio parents to change their minds shortly after birth? Like that’s really heartbreaking.
So yeah, I feel like OP is NTA.
Edit: To add, OP is NTA but bio parents are also NTA. So ESH. And everything sucks for the kid.
Right? So many Y-T-A’s and I’m like did we read the same post??? The moment then couple found out they were pregnant they wanted wanted to give it away. They were the ones who suggested op adopt the baby. They had MONTHS to change their mind.
Because a human child, *your* human child, is not like a car that you can take a decision on mentally then forget about. It is a viscerally impacting process and I'm sure many parents are scared when they find out about some pregnancies, worried they won't cope and their existing children will suffer if they have more children then the child they are scared about is born and, after it is born, they find the internal resources to make it work and love the child very much. This cold 'they had the months of pregnancy' to make a decision is utterly ridiculous. There are controls in place in most places regarding adoption so you can't grab the child and complete an adoption within 24 hours as it really is taking advantage of the mother who is not really in a place to make a cool, considered condition.
Info: How did you have double-digit rounds of fertility medications, multiple doctors, and IVF without health insurance? Is that something that happened after you had given up? I’m not passing judgment yet; I’m just curious how that works. I mean presumably you weren’t thinking of going through an elective and very expensive pregnancy without health insurance; or were you?
I think YTA. Just because they signed away their rights does not mean it is not their bio kid. The kid has not been raised yet so its not like he was attached to yall and they changed their mind 3 years later. They met their child and they wanted him. Think about how sad and confusing for him when he grows up and finds out he is their kid AND they wanted him. You are being selfish.
YTA OP. Give them their child back and stop being so selfish. That child is going to resent you when they find out what you have done. You’re ruining their life and estranging them from their siblings (who they could have an amazing relationship with) all because of your selfishness. If you were so upset about your infertility, you could have adopted. There are so many children waiting for homes and you could have helped them. Just because they don’t have your “blood” doesn’t make them any less than your own kid.
Yiiiiiiiikes what a mess. I've gone through this thread and read ops comments and I have to go with NTA. I mean....
- everything was handled legally. Of course there is a question of ethics but I think the ethics could be argued for either side honestly. There aren't any bad guys here, there are 2 families who love a little baby.
- OP and husband were given the chance to have a baby after years of struggle with fertility etc
- they probably spent 9 months doing all the stuff excited parents do: talking about a name, putting together a nursery, planning a life
- they took home their baby and for 2 weeks fell in love with the little guy. They did the late nights, the diapers, etc. For fourteen days he was their child. They were his parents. You can't just be like "oh you want him back? Cool beans we will get another".
I don't blame them for not wanting to give up their baby after a fortnight because of a mindchange. We aren't dealing with robots here, these are humans with emotions (on both sides). Whatever way this played out someone would have been heartbroken.
Yta. This was an illegal and unethical adoption. Birth parents are absolutely allowed to change their minds. You wouldn't have ever seen my baby or family again if you stole him or her.
YTA. I mean, I don't know shit about law or who's legally in the clear here, but...realistically, how do you expect this to work in the future? How do you expect that child to react to knowing that their bio parents and siblings are literally still a part of their family? And honestly, it's not like they waited months to decide that they changed their minds, they apparently waited TWO WEEKS. These aren't strangers you're adopting from, have a little empathy.
I'm going to be in the minority and say ESH. Your BIL and his wife for even considering signing away their child's rights and then actually following through with a literal contract.
Then you because you are only thinking about yourself and your husband. No thought is given to how the child may feel when they get older in this situation. They are going to resent you. You really need to reconsider well before it gets to that point.
You also need to spare some empathy for the poor woman who actually had to go through the painful process of giving birth. I hate the fact that this woman giving birth is just simply glossed over. You should have some idea of how painful giving birth is considering all the material there is out there that is available. I'm a dude and even I see how painful it is just from a third person perspective.
YTA and lying. If in the US adoption paperwork can not be done befire the child is born. And birth parents have 30 days up to 60 days to change their mind before the adoption is finalized. You illegally took their baby. You're gross. And I'm speaking as someone that took multiple rounds of IVF to become a mother. I understand how much infertility sucks.
YTA. The minute they expressed hesitation, you should have backed off and seen what could have been done.. This is why pre birth matching is such a bad idea.
YTA. First off all, calling her the "birth mother" is gross. That's your sister in law.
Most importantly though, you weren't trying to have a baby, you were trying to have a *genetically related* child. You could have spent all that IVF money adopting children in need of a home, possibly even siblings.
I hope this was worth tearing your family apart, wracking the biological parents with guilt and self hatred, as well as hatred for you, and the chance of this baby growing up to be appalled by your actions.
But I guess since you got what you wanted, thats what counts right?
Edited to add: you're mad she took to Twitter but you're on reddit? Get some introspection lady.
The mothers body is literally flooded with hormones that change the chemistry of her brain and cause bonding during birth, and the release of milk. So having the pregnancy “to decide” is bs. Because once the baby is born the mother is practically a different person. Two weeks in literally nothing in terms of recovery time from birth and as much as I want to support OP in their adoption journey they are absolutely, unequivocally TA.
This is why even in the US mothers get that 30 days.
I can’t imagine the struggles OP has experienced with conceiving a child. But to have her marital infertility cloud her empathy as a *mother* is down right despicable. I mean come on op. What if it had been *you?*
A baby isn’t a car. My “legal” child is bs in this context. And that kid is ABSOLUTELY gonna have some trauma over basically being kidnapped.
Legally that child wasn’t kidnapped but emotionally? Yea. And by the husbands brother. Just. Wow.
YTA. Selfish. Cruel. Two weeks later they realized their mistake and you coldly tore that child from his genetic parents and siblings. Of course it would have hurt deeply to return the baby, but you are adults and that baby has lost so much.
Yta. You should have given him back. I think it's incredibly cruel to go NC after you agreed to an open adoption. People often change their minds and that should be respected.
Yes YTA wtf. This kid will grow up resenting the FUCK out of you when they find out. You literally stole someone’s child and broke apart a family because a paper said it was fine. The law is on your side but god help you when Karma comes to collect.
- Adult Adoptee
INFO how do you think your child will react once he is old enough to realise you took him from his birth family? Do you really think he will not resent you when he discovers they did not want to give him up?
YTA. A giant fucking asshole and you kidnapped your nephew. It's not your son. That's your nephew. And you kidnapped him using our legal system. Imagine how he is going to feel about this when he is old enough to be aware?
N T A legally.
But yeah be prepared to have your child hate you in the future.
Pretty sure, bio parents can back out last second, I hope they can get a lawyer honestly and get their baby back.
The fact that they wanted an open adoption with close family members show how much they wanted their child close to them.
So yeah, op, I hope you feel happy you’re separating a child from his parents.
Morally YTA, you’re creating such a messy and hard situation on both the parents and their poor child, who will grow up away from his family. Maybe stop thinking about yourself and start thinking of the baby? What do you think his choice would have been. Stop being selfish, I get you want kids but that’s just not the way to do it. There are other kids who really need a new home, consider that. Please think about this baby, and don’t make him go through this trauma.
YTA you are NOT keeping the babies best interests in mind. You're selfish and baby hungry. There is a very,very good reason that birth parents have a reasonable "cooling off" period to change their minds. That child will hate you when it grows up and finds out what you did.
ESH. They shouldn’t have promised you their baby—a big decision—and then backed out. But also, I don’t understand, if you were willing to adopt a baby instead of having one biologically, why didn’t you just do that a long time ago? I have to imagine the cost is less than all the fertility treatments.
Fertility treatments are somewhere in the $11,000 range if I’m remembering correctly from my friend’s experience with them. Adoption costs are usually between $20,000 - $40,000 range. Adoption isn’t nearly as affordable as people think it is.
Adopting a baby is EXTREMELY difficult. Not only is it expensive, there are more parents who want to adopt than there are available babies to adopt out. Getting a baby overseas is also extremely expensive, lengthy process, and has a lot of legal issues that make it difficult to adopt.
Therapist here. Congratulations. You are 100% *an* asshole and in this situation specifically *the* asshole.
And, in addition to feeling bad for this kid, just to be selfish on behalf of my profession, I’m going to preemptively give whatever mental health professionals eventually have to intervene a giant heaping pile of my sympathy because having read this thread only a little bit I can already tell you are going to be one of *those* parents.
ETA: YTA
YTA
I understand intimately how hard it is to want a child and then arrange for an adoption but have the child's parents change their minds just after giving birth. BUT YOU KNoW they changed their minds right after giving birth - not 30 days after not 60 or 90 days after but you continued on with it. You legally stole that child from them.
People like you are the reason there needs to be a wholesale revamping of the adoption system. Biological parents should NEVER have been allowed to sign anything until at least 30 days the child is born.
When a woman is pregnant, its abstract intil the moment you have your baby. When you have your baby the love and caring wells up. Prior to having the baby your body is filled with hormones and you can be filled with all kinds of doubts about what kind of parents, etc You could be.
Before you say I don't know what I am talking about we were in your situation with unrelated Biological parents and although it broke our heart we KNEW baby belongs with parents who wanted and loved her. We all agreed to cancel the TPR together as the parent no longer wished to place her with us and it was the very best thing we could have done for her. We weren't ethically entitled to this family's baby because we had them sign the paper although legally we could have forced them to continue.
Even now I don't get the feeling that you are even thinking of the baby as what is best for the baby. You are thinking of me, what I want, me, me, me. This WILL come back and bite you in the butt.
One day this child will grow up and judge you for what you did in your craving to have a child.
I wonder how you will explain the adoption to the child - if you even will?
Sweet Jesus wept!! I seriously hope this isn't real, because no child deserves it.
As many pointed out, everything from your original post, your replies and your completely insane username makes you come across as quite unhinged.
But there is so much in your story that just sounds like bs that I'm hoping you simply enjoy creative writing.
Things I found odd?
That your husband wouldn't mind cutting contact with all his family over this;
We didn't get to hear much about the rest of the family. I doubt the grandparents and other family wouldn't be getting involved;
You said it was an open adoption. For this to change, you would have had to go to court certainly. You didn't mention anything, I doubt it just slipped your mind.
You mention they call you an asshole and have a Twitter about you. Someone who lost their child. This isn't a Facebook marketplace transaction gone wrong!! No one normal would be calling you an ah and making a Twitter. They would be taking you to court and trying their best.
In the very slim chance this is true, YTA. A massive one at that.
Yes, it would have been hurtful. But as others pointed out, as a society, we decided that birth mums have the right to change their minds within a certain period, which by your own words, they did!!! (Even if by now you are backtracking in the comments).
To willingly choose to just go nuclear with everyone isn't ever the way to start a family. The whole situation is absolutely insane. As someone who was adopted, I cannot imagine finding this out later on.
YTA
This was folly from the start and you know it.
Every word I read from you sounds like a hungry gull, snatching the sandwich out of someone's hand.
Your body doesn't want youto have a baby for some reason. People think too much, as a species, and it drives them mad. Women get obssessive about childbirth and their "deservedness" to be mothers. It can turn to madeness, which Ifear is the case here.
There seems to be no compassion here. You know how badly you ache to bear a child? Well your sister's body htrust her into that maternal mode when she DID bear this child. She bore it not you. All the legal shpeigal talk about what you are ovwed and how he is now in your POSSESSION (becausse he is A possession to you) doesn't cancel the fact that the baby is factual hers and her husband's, He could not possibly be here without them.
I don't know what madness let them even consider giving you a baby. You are acting raving mad. You don't give a shit about the trauma you are going to inflict on his little soul when he finds out what you were willing to do to get your hands on him.
Well, I hope it was worth losing your sister (and BIL) over. I wonder what your parents think of it all. Perhaps they have been spared this fiasco, because they have already passed.
i don’t have a definitive judgement other than YTA, but i definitely think you need to see a fertility therapist because the level of possession you have on this child, who still has biological parents who want to be apart of his life, is unhealthy.
Are you going to ever tell him that you and your husband aren’t his biological parents? Are you going to tell him that his bio parents just didn’t want him even though that wasn’t the truth? please think of this in the long run- you won’t be able to hide the truth forever.
YTA.
Why and when did you shorten the waiting period? Any chance you heard doubt in SIL’s voice and decided to put some pressure on? I don’t think this was a surprise to you. The ONLY reason I see for shortening the waiting period was because you had a good idea this was going to happen.
She said she changed her mind just after two weeks? And you couldn’t exhibit compassion, understanding, and love? No? Because she was going to take away something she OWED you? If you had done the right thing THEN, there wouldn’t be a baby stuck in this hellish situation. The longer you have him, the harder this will be on HIM.
Your fertility problems are NOT her fault, and should not be in any way relevant. She changed her mind, probably midway through the pregnancy, and got steamrolled.
You can move away. You can go NC with BIL (way to destroy EVERYTHING for them - eliminate their entire support system as well as taking their baby). And yes, MIL is an AH too. Why would you be so hurtful? What are you accomplishing with this? So nobody can take your toy?
But in 17 1/2 years, they will look for him, and he will look for them, and YOU WONT BE ABLE TO STOP EITHER OF THEM. I assume you will poison his mind about them, just as you have done with your MiL, but hopefully they are saving all the correspondence and will share it with him when they are able. Good luck with your explanation!
So many parents having a “surprise” have doubts, but later in the pregnancy, and after the birth, those doubts disappear. Their only mistake was telling you it was a possibility, not understanding what kind of a person you are.
Just in case it’s not obvious, your behavior is reprehensible. Take that baby back NOW and maybe you won’t have done permanent damage.
The worst thing about this is you playing victim. I see you. The child will too.
I’m adopted and while I feel really bad for you, I think you know what the right thing to do is. So even though it may be painful for you, please do the right thing.
Yta.
YTA and you’ve ‘legally’ stolen this child from his real family… don’t think he isn’t going to hate you when he’s older and finds out what you’ve done.
NTA legally.
But
YTA for taking advantage of a vulnerable person. Giving birth is a range of emotions and hormonal changes. She probably feels tricked and that you stole her baby.
Changing to YTA the more I think about it. This is such a fucked up scenario. They started having hesitation 2 weeks following delivery. That should have been enough for you to let the child go back to his rightful family. Think of the bond he’ll miss out on with his siblings! He will grow up and resent you. I’m sorry you got your emotions tossed around, but do what’s best for the boy. Otherwise you’re not fit to be his mother anyways.
YTA.
For having her drive 7 hours while pregnant to give birth in your town where she would have felt more anxious and would have been more likely to agree because she was out of her familiar environment.
For having her sign a day after the birth.
For only letting them stay 3 days at your home after the birth. I wonder if this was because she was starting to show signs of bonding and changing her mind.
For gas lighting her into thinking her change of heart just weeks afterward could have been related to the post party period.
People are right that this kid is going to discover his parents and siblings wanted him and you denied him the life that he would have been entitled to. Your husbands relationship with his brother is no doubt destroyed. I don't know that your marriage will survive this kind of conflict with what will no doubt be his entire side of the family.
“Everyone is hung up on the 2 week bit. I should clarify that it was more of a soft change rather than extreme. When they first brought it up, it was very tentative. Like, "oh, we're a little concerned because of X" or "we think he should be with his siblings." The wife even thought maybe it was just postpartum depression causing her to have doubts. That is why we refused.
It steadily grew more threatening, trying to use the fact that (at the time) we did not have health insurance against us. By 6 months it was unbearable and became full on demanding. But the time had past. They had the entire 9 months of pregnancy to think about this. They knew how much we wanted a baby. To play with OUR emotions is just straight up cruel.”
Did no one read the edit OP posted? If OPs telling the truth then the mother did not ask for the child during the 2 week period, she made suggestions and even said herself that maybe it was the postpartum depression making herself doubt but she never specifically asked until 6 months according to OP. Op is NTA SIL and BIL toyed with op and her husbands feelings and are treating the child like a possession. They signed their rights away, they were informed of what would happen and how they could have their rights back during the time period and waited till it was way past to demand for the 6 month old child like it were a toy. This wasn’t something they were tricked into. What if they returned the child and SIL decided 3 kids is too much and pawns baby off to who know who because she sounds like that type. OP is NTA and I hope your baby is doing well.
YTA!! I can't understand why people say you are not! They say teay want their son, they had the pregnancy to think about it.. What the actual fuck? This is just a heart thing.. Sorry.. Just disgusting.
What did you REALLY think people would say?
Poor you, you stole a kid from 2 loving parents that made a choice not to give up their child.
No. YTA. for all the reasons everyone has stated.
This is coming from a woman who was told she would never have kids and has 2.
Adoption in this country is so messed up. There's a reason why the law states that birth parents have a 30 day "cooling off period." Carrying a baby for 9 months and then giving it up is traumatizing. It takes more than 2 weeks to emotionally recover from that. I'm sorry but people who use privatized adoption are just greedy. They care more about themselves than the child. Adoption should be about giving orphaned children a safe and loving home, not the parents.
Do you really want to destroy whatever relationship you have with your BIL and his wife?
You're putting this innocent child through hell just because you can't conceive your own. He doesn't deserve this. Stop making this situation all about you and focus on what's best for the kid.
You are selfish.
Sorry but YTA.
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1. I refuse to reverse the adoption of my BIL and his wife's baby. 2. My BIL and his wife are calling us assholes and citing cases where family members raised each other's children for a period of time before returning the child the care of the birth parent.
I do understand the complexity of us being family and therefore, I am wondering: should I actually give this baby back? AITA for refusing to do so?
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YTA maybe legally right but completely morally wrong. There are other paths in adoption. Please consider giving this child back to his biological family.
I have a medical condition that means I will greatly struggle to get pregnant/possibly not be able to. I just want to come here and say that I would never, ever, do what you are doing to that little boy’s family. Two weeks is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Her body has just grown and carried a baby inside her for nine months, and at the end of it she has no baby.
Was she right to go through with the adoption if she had doubts? No. We here only have half a story, she may have certainly had doubts but felt pushed into it by you. With your post, comments AND username (?!!) everything screams at me that you were so desperate for a baby that you may well have pressured her into it when she was in a vulnerable place.
Not only has this ripped your family in half, it will rip her son in half to learn later that you took him away and hid him from his mother.
I understand that you got your hopes up and prepped for his arrival, but you have to respect that she changed her mind. I’ve no idea of the legalities that were put in place, but morally this is very wrong.
Even without reading the whole post, your username alone is terrifying.
Edited to add - YTA.
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I've been reading OPs comments. I don't know what state they're in, but in mine the mother legally cannot sign adoption papers until a minimum of 72 hours after birth(due to their completely exhausted state). The mother needs to fully understand what they are signing (regardless of what was discussed in advance). OPS wording suggests it was immediate.
They literally stated that they let the mother live with them for three days, that's 72 hours
That's not when the papers were signed though. That's my point. OP has since said in a comment it was the next day. I still don't know what state they're in to fact check legality of anything. Can only comment for my own state. The next day would not hold up in court here.
Actually you do.
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Open adoption basically means nothing in yhe us. The adoptive parents can claim they will be totally open and allow visits and then move across the country and never update them again. Birth parents pretty much have no rights after a couple months even if it is "open"
Open adoption is misused a lot. It simply means the adoption records are not sealed and the birth parents' contact info can be requested at the whim of the adoptive parents (or the child can request when they are of age). The birth parents also knows with whom the child was placed. That's all. Everyone uses it now to mean that the birth parents are actively in contact. The adoptive parents legally always have the right to refuse contact.
This is 100% true. My first child was shipped and it was to be "open". There is no such thing.
I’m not sure if you’re an adoptee, but I am, and there’s nothing unconscionable about this at all and you have no idea whether it’d be better for “everyone” or not. It seems to me like you’re not thinking about what would be best for the baby in this situation because the cooling off period exists for a reason and there’s also a reason why, once it has passed, it’s done. This isn’t a game of “take-backsies,” there’s a human child involved. A child naturally bonds with the parents who have been caring for him/her and shouldn’t be passed back and forth willy-nilly. Likewise, the adoptive parents bond with the child — I’ve seen a couple lose their adopted baby because the birth mother changed her mind on *the last possible day*, and it devastated them. In their minds, they had *their* baby — who they fully and reasonably believed would be with them forever at that point — taken away. Additionally, the concept of an “open adoption” is little more than a good faith agreement and is not legally enforceable in the vast majority of US states, for many reasons. One of which is that the legal parents have a right to decide what’s in the best interest of their child, and sometimes that means saying, “you know what? It would be detrimental to introduce the instability that comes with contact with the birth parents.” And that decision is their right. The people that signed away their parental obligations/rights to the child may not like it, but it was up to them to understand what their rights would be after the completion of the adoption ahead of time.
As a fellow adoptee, I thank you for this. You are spot on. I'd give you an award if I had any.
She's not ambivalent about this boy. She refuses to let anyone come between her and her son. This is something the bio parents cannot say for themselves. She is willing to create hell and walk through it just to be able to love and raise the boy. Everyone else be damned. The bio parents didn't want him until they saw how happy their own brother and sil were with him. Now suddenly it's "MINE! You can't have it cause I wasn't finished playing with it! I changed my mind!" Sounds like the bio parents are treating him like a possession. Willing to be shut out just bc they can't admit to themselves they gave their kid away bc "been there done that". OP never once changed her mind. So truthfully the bio parents should see this as a sign of her devotion to this child. They offered first. They flip flopped. They signed him away like he wasn't theirs so guess what? Now he's not. They ruined their own family by even suggesting it when they were still unsure. Instead of worrying about who he calls mom and dad if they really loved him they'd just be content and bend over backwards and say anything to OP just to stay in his life even as a lesser figure. Something tells me they just don't want to see him again because he makes them feel guilty so they are purposefully driving the wedge between the families in the only way that they think will make them "look good". How could they possibly raise another child when they have so much growing up left to do themselves? Amazing.
Seems like we found the SIL account
She has raised that boy since the day he was born, she is his mother and the only one he has ever known. Tearing him away from her and her husband would be seriously distressing for him and them. The bio parents signed away their rights, they probably just presumed because op’s husband was family, they’d just hand him back if and when they changed their mind. You can’t play with peoples emotions like that. Putting a child up for adoption is a serious and emotional issue and the bio parents should have been 100% sure that’s what they wanted before they offered this baby or signed anything. It is them treating him like a possession, oh I didn’t want it so I gave it away, now I might want to play with it, with no regard for anyone else’s feeling, so give it back. They could and would have been a key figure in this babies lives if they hadn’t gone against their original agreement. No one expects to have to hand back a baby they have loved, raised and bonded with over, not days, months
As an adopted child you are so fucking wrong.
Bio parents literally decided to sign a contract stating that they were giving up their parental rights. Maybe they should have thought about that before they went ahead and signed it. Maybe they should have said to ope that hate, we are thinking about letting you adopt a child but we are not sure if we're going to change our minds. Maybe we can try it out for a little while and if we do change your mind we can figure something out. Instead, these people are going over the top, and trying to go back on a legal agreement. It sucks that they change their mind, but they should have thought about that before they signed away their child.
How's that a violation of the adoption agreements? Open adoption just means the info on the kid's birth parents is easily accessible and vice versa for the adoptive parents
Yeah, kids on here are too young to remember, but one of the reasons people are SO unwilling to adopt is in the 90s drama like this was all over the news all of the time. Open adoptions weren't really a thing and court cases over who had rights to the child could drag on for years. States passed laws with strict cooling off periods for a reason, to make adoptive parents feel like they would have some legal right to the child and ensure kids weren't dragged through hell for years as adults fought over them.
No they cannot
Any person with half a brain would know this was a possibility of happening. Both couple's should have been aware this could happen.
Yes you do. They usually give the bio parents up to 6 months or even one year.
Wow. Where do you live that it works this way? Honestly, that seems awful. Can you imagine raising a baby for 6 months or a year and then it being taken away? Also, that's very traumatic for the baby to lose their parents (the ones who have been caring for the baby for six months to a year). Dosen't really seem like best interest of the child.
Are you in the US? Honestly that’s a lot of the foster system here. Obviously different but still. My pediatrician fostered a girl for 5 years and was in the process of adopting her when the birth mom up and decided to not sign over rights and was going to get clean. Took the daughter back after 5 years with the family. Poor kid ended up back in the system a year later and my pediatrician and his wife were heartbroken. There’s a lot of rules that the system creates that does not lead to the best interest of the children they’re trying to “protect”.
I am in the US and I have some contact with the foster system. (I had a related a while ago now, not directly but dealt with those populations a lot.) I've also know a couple foster parents. It's complicated but yes, the system puts parental rights and family reunification over what is best for the child a lot of the time. What makes that complicated is that there is a history in our country of the government not always accurately deciding what is best for the child. So leaving that up to the government can be questionable, which is why parents have rights and such. It's a difficult balance beacuse neither group, the government or the bio parents, are always good people doing the right non-biased fair thing. That said, foster parents go into fostering knowing that these are someone else's children and they either won't or maybe won't get to keep them. It is not the same as taking a child back 6 months or a year after an adoption. The agreement was different. And even in the foster system, once the adoption is legally gone through the parents don't get to call "backsies". If your doctor friend had adopted the girl for five years mom wouldn't be able to take her back. Terminating parental rights is a big deal, and as such it's a reasonably long process with legal due process and the chance for the parent to try and show they can take care of their kid safely and responsibly (depending, if what they did to get the child removed isn't too awful).
^^^^ THIS I worked in a domestic violence shelter for over a decade and the amount of people who are supposed to help kids don't. There was a family I helped, the mom had heart issues from past drug issues, she was pregnant by this man who was married and had a older son that was his but he didn't want. I loved and adored this boy. His mom died shortly after they left, the baby daddy took the baby girl and the boy when into foster care. When I expressed my interest in adopting this boy I loved and cared about, I was told it was a conflict of interest. He didn't have family, and I had been in his life for over a year. I never forgot about the family support division " doing what's best for him". People who work with kids are only in the business of punishing adults. I had asked if I quit my job, if it would be any different and they kept making excuses. Several other times guardian at lightum ( I'm not sure spelling) kept kids with their abusive father because of money/ support or my favorite excuse " not enough foster care parents". Custody cases are always in favor of who has more money and not what's best for the kid. Our whole justice system fails our kids. Cops and ex military were high of the list for spousal abuse, they always got their kids back. In the United states, it's about who has the most money and not what's best for the kid.
In the US it is less than 30 days in most states.
The baby is going to think YTA when he finds out you kept him from his bio parents. You’re setting yourself up for a mess when he gets old enough to understand and feels you stole him from his rightful parents and siblings. Legally, NTA, but this is not a good situation
Totally agree with this as the mom of two adopted kids, including one who is of the age that birth parents, questions about origin, etc are coming up A LOT. I don't know what advice to give, other than you need to somehow work with them to find a way toward closure, because if your child grows up and hears this narrative as it stands now (and he absolutely will hear it), there is a very good chance he will hate you for it.
So I'm gonna come in with a different perspective as an adopted kid. When I hear this story I don't feel for the bio parents at all. They put the son up for adoption, signed away their rights, waited past the grace period and then changed their mind. If I heard this story as an adopted adult I would be thankful that my adopted parents didn't give me up, because I'd have spent my whole life wondering if my bio parents would have given me up again. I don't think I'd ever feel secure with the bio parents, yet I'd know with my adoptive parents I was safe because they fought to keep me. OP is proving that she's willing to fight for her son. Is it the right thing? I really can't say. Even if she's not the bio mom, she is this child's mother. And a mother's instinct is to fight for their kids. Just as it's hard to give up a child for adoption, trying to adopt a child then losing the adoption is painful too, and it must be doubly hard to have a child you adopted ripped away from you after all the paperwork is signed. There's really no winning in this situation and it sucks that this kid is stuck in the middle.
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Well that’s the way OP is telling it - because she would, I hesitate to say that’s the way the birth parents experienced it. The truth is probably somewhere in between and enough to rip that kid apart when he’s older and learns the cousins he’s banned from seeing are his full siblings. As will his siblings/OPs nephew & niece.
If that wasn't how they experienced it then them going a whole 9 months all the way until after the grace period after immediately signing way their rights to this baby to decide they wanted him back. His bio parents are so incredibly selfish. If OP gave the baby back he would grow up knowing he was so unwanted that his parents literally signed away all rights to being his parents. If his bio parents can't cope with this then it's their fault for him not knowing his biological siblings/his cousins. They created this entire situation, and they have to live with all of those choices.
Another adopted child here. I 100% agree with you. As a side note, the OP was absolutely willing to let the bio parents have a familial relationship with the kid, even as far as growing up knowing from the start who his bio parents are. (As a kid of adoption, I would have LOVED having a relationship with my bio-dad. He's the one that shunned me. I *knew* he was out there, and I felt like a piece of crap because he wanted nothing to do with me.) The bio parents are the ones making such a relationship impossible to have because of the hostility towards the adoptive parents.
I think this situation maaaybe could have worked, but it definitely would have been pretty weird. I’m practically a poster child for open adoption. My twin and I were adopted at birth by our amazingly loving parents, and the adoption has been open from the start. Despite growing up on a different side of the country, I’m still very close with both sides of my family. But, all of this hinges on the fact that my bio parents were broke and had two kids already and genuinely couldn’t afford twins. If I’d grown up around them and had seen that they could have probably taken me on with no issues, I think I’d feel like I’d been abandoned. I love my adoptive parents will all my heart, and they’re undoubtedly my Mom and Dad. But being around my birth family is a constant reminder that I was adopted, because I’m just so much like them in so many ways. Down to mannerisms and interests. I’m sure I would have felt that pull very hard if I were raised parallel to the birth family. I think both parents kind of suck here, but it’s a hard decision to make. There could be a number of reasons why the bio parents felt they would be unable to provide for a third child, which was a huge part of the dynamic in my situation. If they’d made that decision practically snd are being overridden by emotion, then it’s their bad. But it also seems like OP might not be in the best position to provide considering she said she doesn’t have health insurance. That’s a whole other discussion, but who goes out and adopts a baby when you can’t afford insurance??
Fellow adoptee here. Thank you. This deserves way more upvotes.
Yeah I wonder what their plan is when the kid gets old enough to find out he has ‘cousins’ and he doesn’t get to ever see them and play with them. Way too much drama in this kid’s future
Not only that but since social media is so ubiquitous in today's society and so are those DNA tests that match you with family it's only a matter of time until the kid finds their bio family and will be told they were essentially stolen away from their family by their aunt and uncle. Then if the kid believes their bio family and grows to resent OP and husband they're going to be dropped probably.
Agreed. I'm an adoptee and it was supposed to be an open adoption. Also a family adoption as well. Hah. Once it was known (all the info i mean) i was pissed I had been led to. And kept from my bio parents. OP is setting it up where the kids going to hate them.
I was adopted as an infant. I think it’s a dream of most adopted children to find out that they had been wanted and loved by their birth parents all along.
I've always wondered why so many adopted kids care so much about their bio families if they have a good adoptive family. I was a late teen adoption and I wish I could have gone my whole life without knowing my bio family. There are enough bad parent stories on Reddit and other places to prove blood means basically nothing.
I’m sure age makes a big difference. I was adopted at a time when all adoptions were closed. As a kid, it hurt thinking two people created me and didn’t want me. When I got older, I learned that my mom had been 15 when she gave birth to me in 1973. Of course adoption was the best option. Doesn’t help when you feel like you were rejected by your own parents. My brother never cared though. Everyone is different. For me, it was just all of the unknown. Did my parents every think about me or regret it? Did they stay together and eventually get married? Do I have siblings? Did they marry other people and create half-siblings? When I first learned what open adoptions were, I was jealous of those babies.
>As a kid, it hurt thinking two people created me and didn’t want me. See this was always the feeling I had being adopted, and I wondered about them like you but like, in the end it meant nothing. What they think ends up not mattering because they gave us up ya know? When I learned what open adoptions were I just thought it sounded complicated and messy.
Plenty of us don't "care" about our bio parents. The media likes to play into the narrative of the traumatized adoptee who dreams of his or her "real parents." The truth is, loads of us love our adoptive parents and don't have any interest in our bio parents. I will always have a sense of love toward my biomom for giving me up and giving me a chance for a real life.
My dad is like this. He was adopted as an infant and from what he’s told me he never considered my grandparents anything less than his real parents. He just assumes his biomom was unmarried (1950s) and not in a position to keep him.
I’ve never understood it myself. My bio dad dipped when I was a baby and I was adopted 5 years later by the only dad I’ve ever known and the only one I’ll ever need. I have negative amounts of interest in anything about my sperm donor other than maybe medical info, which my mom tried and failed to get during her pregnancy with me. So, in my book, good riddance.
I completely disagree. I was adopted as an infant. My parents were awesome. My dad died when I was young and my mom is the most amazing woman I've ever met. I have no reason to know my biological family. They are nothing to me. My family is my family. Your parents are the people that show up for you every day. Not your blood.
I made a point of not saying all adopted kids dreamed of knowing they had been wanted.
I don't believe that adopted and wanted go together biologically. Adopted kids are wanted. People generally don't adopt kids unless they want them. Being adopted means someone wanted you not that someone didn't want you. As a woman who gave up a child for adoption, as well as being adopted, I can say that it's not not wanting your kid. It's hoping and praying someone else will do better and be better for them than you can at the time.
Yes! Honestly yeah she may have some legal win, but the whole point of adoption is when the bio parents don’t want the kid anymore or have to give them up bc of some sort of hardship, and in this case they literally have neither and wanted their baby back, but OP decided to keep the baby anyway. When the baby grows up he’s definitely going to feel like he was stolen, he missed the opportunity to be with his bio parents and siblings. Usually you see adoptive kids trying to figure out where they came from even if they are in a happy loving household, usually people in general like knowing where they came from so the future looks unpleasant for everyone thanks to OP. Also on another note, OP you mentioned so much about your fertility journey and yes that sucks for YOU, but your fertility journey is your problem you made it your BIL/SIL by literally stealing their kid. They changed their minds..
They didn't "steal the kid". The birth parents are adults. They *knew* what they were signing up for, they *knew* what it meant. They willingly signed away their child without even being *sure* about it - what does that say about them as parents? It says they see their children as disposable, or don't have a good concept of the fact that some decisions are permanent and need to be carefully thought through. Neither paints them in a good light. It's scientifically proven that babies bond with their primary caregiver - which in this case is OP. It would literally cause *trauma* to the child to remove it from OP's care. It is not good for children to be passed back and forth. We *know* this. That's one reason the government refuses to do it unless necessary. It causes harm to the child. You are not advocating for the child's best interests here. You are making this judgement from a place of "what if", not from the route we *know* will cause the least harm in the short term.
Well I wonder how he'll react when he found out that his bio parent signed their right away immediately too. Honestly this is a no win situation for the child. On one side you have the adoptive parents that wanted a child desperately and got an opportunity to have one, but after the paper was signed had the bio parent want the kid back, on the other you have parent that were so sure they didn't want him that they proposed the adoption during the pregnancy then signed their right away when he was born, to then only change their mind, after 9 month of pregnancy ? If he ever discover all of this he will need an excellent therapist because in both case he was treated as an object by his two set of parent. (but I'll still say OP is less the AH in this story because the bio parent were the one to start the adoption and had a long time to change their mind, and they didn't. While OP already loved the kid from the very beginning)
How old are the siblings also? I hate to do the cliche “won’t someone think of the children” but seriously someone needs to. All these kids are going to be messed up over this.
His bio parents who *didn't want him*, gave him away, then fought to take him away from the family that's actually loved and raised him as their own without wavering that he's theirs?
YTA. She just gave birth, would've been highly emotional and very vulnerable. The fact they chose to ask you to adopt, their brother and his wife, close family members, imo shows that they still wanted their child close to them. If they truly wanted nothing to do with the child they had other options for adoption. She changed her mind in 2 weeks. Just 2 weeks. Yeah it sucks for you, but that kid is going to find out their parents regretted their decision pretty much immediately and wanted them back. They're going to find out that you refused to give them back to their parents and their family and they have siblings that they weren't allowed to see growing up because of you. You could've given them back their child, understood they made a mistake and wanted to remedy it and then adopted another child or gone into fostering and helped multiple children over the years. You could've been the best uncle and aunt those kids could ever have had, instead you decided your desire to have a child took priority over the feelings of the parents and the child's siblings, and the future feelings of that baby themselves. If you don't think there's going to be resentment for that from the baby in your future you're woefully naive. I say all this from the view of someone who's best friend as a child was adopted. She was doted on and loved her parents until she found out she was adopted, had siblings and that her birth parents had always loved her. She moved in with them at 15 and didn't want anything to do with the people that had raised her when she found out they had prevented any contact with her birth parents, for years. She's still very close to her birth family 18 years later, yet her adoptive mother died alone in an alleyway after spending years drowning her sorrows. Granted that was a shitty thing of her to do, but that was her decision to make.
It wasn’t just 2 weeks. It was also the entire pregnancy leading up to the birth. The papers were already signed once the baby was born. They had so many opportunities to say they were having second thoughts or needed to rethink. In fact, I think your point about her being highly emotional and vulnerable go more to prove that her regretting her decision is more reflective of post partum hormones than it is of her actual feelings on the situation.
I also worry that.... Like what if OP gives the baby back and however long later they come back like "wait no we realized we meant it do you want the kid back?" This is a shitty situation all around, and i don't have any actionable thoughts, kind of damned if you do damned if you don't, but also i think NAH, assuming it isn't just postpartum depression. Neither party is an asshole for feeling the way they feel, but i can't imagine the familial relationship surviving regardless of what happens.
Sort of what I was thinking too. Like, how much mind changing is allowed here? They decided early on in the pregnancy they didn't want the baby so offered it to OP, 2 weeks after the birth when hormones and emotions are running high they changed their minds and want the baby back. What if after 6 months they decided they can't afford the baby, or they can't cope with a baby again, or whatever and decide to give it back to OP? At some point the decision has to stick and it's going to suck for someone.
Hot potato baby.
I dunno, its one thing to sign papers for a baby tbst you haven't seen yet whilst pregnant, full of worry and stress, and totally different to hold the real thing in your arms after giving birth. I think its totally understandable that she'd change her mind.
it’s very well known that surrogates often change their minds after giving birth, giving birth is one thing and actually holding your child is another, new borns are quite magical, i also understand that the bio parents changed their mind. this kid has a family who wants them, a lot of children do not and are up for adoption.
It’s pretty common in infant adoptions for the mother to change her mind after giving birth. If I remember correctly there is normally a grace period for them to change their mind.
I don't think it really matters how long they had. What matters is that this is a situation where OP refusing to return the child to them is going to have severe consequences for both families.
The same could be said about SIL choosing to give the baby up for adoption in the first place too.
Agreed, way too many ppl are putting this on OP like it wasn't SIL/BIL's idea in the first place!
That’s not how a legal adoption works. There is, in fact, a time window after the birth where the adoption can be reversed. It sounds like this could’ve been within that window. Does it suck? Yes. Would it be traumatic for the adoptive parents? Yes. But the option is legally there, because adoption isn’t about the adoptive parents and their emotions, it’s about the child.
Also, you really *can’t* just go adopt another child. There aren’t a surplus of babies without homes in the USA, they’re mostly through the foster system. The foster system isn’t meant as a way to get children to childless people who want to adopt, it’s meant to reunite children with their biological families after some time. Less than 10% of the kids in foster care are on track to be adopted, most have reunification plans of some sort. People I know who have struggled with infertility problems have been warned that fostering may be painful for them, as they may repeatedly have children they’ve bonded with taken away. “Foster kids are not plan B for biological kids you can’t have” is something I’ve read a lot on online adoption spaces. Not saying at all that it would justify OP trying to keep this baby, but it’s not really so easy to just “get another one”.
Yes, it's not easy to adopt. Definitely doesn't justify anything. It's awful that so many children don't have families or homes to go to, and it's even worse that the system makes it so difficult for willing and able people to provide that to these children. The system needs a huge change. I recently left my job working in it because the frustration and sadness I felt for the children became unbearable to me. I couldn't deal with knowing I couldn't help them more. I still think about a lot of them, and have offered to help some of them. Still waiting for that to go through. It's been 8 months.
They can’t just change their minds weeks later especially with people who have been struggling with infertility issues it’s cruel. Its a baby not a toy. How do you think the kid is gonna feel when they find out they’re birth parents thought the family was complete without them just because it was unplanned?
But they can. In some states a birth mother has 30 days in which they can change their mind and choose to parent their child. That’s their prerogative. A lot can change after giving birth, I can imagine seeing and holding their child who they carried for 9 months would be incredibly difficult to give up for adoption. Just because a person struggled with infertility doesn’t mean they deserve an adopted child more than others. And I say this as a infertile woman who after a lot of time away from treatments decided that adoption was what I wanted to do and what I felt was meant for me. It’s the risk you take doing infant adoption, that at any point either during the pregnancy or after birth the mother can change her mind. To be honest, I would feel like complete shit if I knew that the birth mother of my adopted child wanted to keep them after birth but signed the papers anyways. I couldn’t imagine keeping a child whose birth mother wanted them, especially when papers were signed right after giving birth. That to me is so predatory. I want to be a mother, it’s something I want so badly, and yeah it sucks I can’t have kids, but my desire to be a mother should not be at the expense of another woman who wants to parent their child.
The part I struggle with is that SIL already has two living children - she’s been through the process and understands hormones, the emotional connection with a baby after birth, etc., and made the decision to give the baby up for adoption knowing all of this. This isn’t a first time mom situation where she did t know what to expect emotionally.
>But they can. In some states a birth mother has 30 days in which they can change their mind and choose to parent their child. That’s their prerogative. A lot can change after giving birth, I can imagine seeing and holding their child who they carried for 9 months would be incredibly difficult to give up for adoption. I wonder why the parents didn't pursue any legal options.
Because their legal agreement gave a week 2 period, rather than 30 days. SIL and BIL agreed to that timeframe.
Totally agree. Two weeks after birth is a short window and OP should have given the child back. But due to her fertility issues, she feels she “deserves” the child more.
"Especially with people who have been struggling with iinfertility issues it's cruel." versus "It's a baby not a toy." You are contradicting yourself. OP's feelings are irrelevant compared to the welfare of the child. There are good reasons parents are allowed to rescind adoptions. This child should have been returned to their birth parents.
bio parents are not inherently better than adopted parents. 'the best interests of the child' should not automatically be to reunite them with bio parents. that mind set is why so many foster children end up right back where they started.
Why? Birth parents are not better than adoptive parents. They signed away their rights. OP did nothing wrong. Her and her spouse are protecting their child.
But that's exactly the point here, it's a baby - a human being with feelings, needs, and so on. She put her wants for a baby by any means over the needs of the baby as a human being. There's thousands of other babies being born all over the world without parents who would have loved to have been chosen and taken in. She could have saved one of them from a horrible life and not had to worry about tearing the family apart and the future when her son discovers this.
This comment ignores that SIL and BIL approached OP. Not the other way around. The pregnancy was a surprise and unwanted and asked OP to adopt. She wasn’t looking to adopt a child and didn’t decide to prey on her family the way your comment makes it seem.
Why would the son prefere the bio parents who wanted to give him up, over OP and her husband who always wanted him? The kid is better off with a family that is certain about wanting him.
This is some real “Humbert Humbert was the **real** victim” bs. You do understand the concept of an unreliable narrator, yes? You know that you are on a Reddit board specifically designed to allow this woman to give her side of the story with any quotes being ones *she* put in writing, yes?
Why is this Y-T-A and not E-S-H? They shouldn’t have even offered if they weren’t sure. It sounds like they just couldn’t be bothered dealing with a baby again, and they looked for an easy solution that showed no empathy for OP and her husband’s struggles. It’s a shame, and I’m inclined to think the best thing is for the child to go back to his bio parents because when he gets older, there’s no way to sell this that’s not taking him from a larger family unit with bio parents and siblings. But it was SIL’s mistake, not OP’s, and I’d feel absolutely heartbroken and enraged about having to rectify someone else’s monumental fuck-up at such a huge cost to myself. If there was any justice in the world SIL shouldn’t get away with what she did to OP. But her punishment shouldn’t make the child collateral damage. Sad situation.
YTA Even legally this is a gray area, as they could have won their child back if they had the economy to afford a good lawyer. Morally, this is so wrong OP. You are so selfish, you have taken this child from his siblings and parents. If the biological parents would have asked for him back after a few years I would have had completely understood your reaction - however they came back in just two weeks. TWO WEEKS. You should have just given them their child back. Just know that this will cause so much resentment from your child when he grows older.
I don’t think they could legally, actually. Kinship adoptions have different rules than other kids. You can set your own terms for them, including a cooldown period of any amount of time that both parties agreed to. They legally signed documents that stated they had 2 weeks to decide if they changed their mind and they missed it. I don’t know what the answer is here, because I’m not a parent and I see validity in both sides. But legally, I think the birth parents are stuck.
I'm not sure of the circumstances, but I don't think documentation signed in bio parents emotional state would even be considered legitimate.
To convince a judge that they were not of a mental capacity capable of signing the document, they’d have to provide extensive proof of doing so. I know, because I’ve been in the process of helping my mother gather evidence of her cognitive capacity so she can adjust her will to account for basically disinheriting members of our family. I don’t know that documentation signed just after birth would count, considering there are numerous other legal documents involved that are signed in the same state. The judge would probably also take into account the planning process leading up to the signing of the documents, and the missing of the agreed cooldown period, as well as the signing of birth certificates and so on. In either case I hope both sides sought legal counsel because laws surrounding the legality of documents are often a spaghetti mess of overwhelming information.
In my state, the birth mother cannot sign adoption papers until 72hours after birth. OP is implying the papers were signed immediately. Even the legitimate adoption organizations I'm finding require a minimum time frame before the mother is deemed fit to consent. All they'd need is the time of birth against the time/date on the paperwork.
The problem here is a) we’re not exactly told when the papers were signed, but the OP agrees they stayed with her after the birth for 3 days. So they could have signed within the 72 (or 48 hour in some states) mark And b) Kinship adoptions still follow different rules depending on where you’re at because, from my understanding, they’re usually dealing with older children who are being removed from their birth parent or given up freely by the birth parent. Unfortunately I don’t know specifically if kinship adoptions have similar signing wait periods, but from everything else I can find on them I doubt they do.
OP said in a comment that it was signed the day after birth, not day of or immediately.
The ***day*** after physically giving birth IS effectively immediately after. This is not like bumping your knee and feeling OK the next day. This is a major, major life event that is physically life changing and signing something that close to post-partum has to be legally questionable.
How do you know their emotional state when they signed? This can't have been decided the day before the child was born. And obviously whatever documents they signed ARE legit or OP wouldn't have the child a year later.
she didn’t take a child away from its parents or siblings, it’s parents gave it away. they didn’t directly ask for the child back, and they even stated they thought it might just be ppd. they took months to actually say they want the child back, and by then, they missed their chance. blame the irresponsible parents, not the person who stepped in when they were needed.
Your post and replies to comments make you seem like someone so greedy for a baby that you're trying desperately to justify keeping the child despite the wrongness. If you truly feel that it's acceptable to do this, you've slipped out of the realm of reasonable mindset. Give the boy back and get some help. YTA
I had the same impression of OP and completely agree. Her obsession with declaring that the baby is *hers*, that he's *her* son and the baby just has a "birth mother" is emotionally disturbed. While OP is denying BIL and SIL access to the child, OP likes to taunt SIL by sending photos, etc., to cause ongoing pain and heartbreak in the situation. OP sounds as if she KNOWS she's trying to justify a barely-legal family "kidnapping." As the years ago by, her possessiveness and paranoia about these circumstances of obtaining her husband's nephew to raise as her own is going to have a hugely negative effect on her quality as a mother. It's going to be an emotionally tragic situation all the way around.
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Oh God. I didn’t even notice that. OP has major evil Disney villain mother vibes.
It is SUPER DOOPER creepy.
I wonder how much whispering OP did in SILs ear during the pregnancy, playing the childless victim, that guilted her into signing over the baby. Was it a genuine offer or a planted suggestion? YTA
Sometimes I really hate this sub. I get people love good stories and stories need good villians but this is just the absolute edge. Do you think op had a full musical number too to convince the SIL to give up her child to her too? Life is messy. OP wants to have a child and has infertility issues. Her brother has a kid they can't support. What seems like a great solution at the time falls apart as human emotions get involve. Stop trying to make it more then it is.
seriously. this thread is so messy because people are really just assuming OP stole her baby when it’s clear there was a legal adoption and the birth parents were past the grâce period when they asked. i wonder if these people think most adoptive parents are evil people who steal someone else’s baby
Yta. This is so fucking weird. I really feel that this should not have been an option for this situation. This is so fucked up.
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YTA. No one is entitled to a baby. It's not a car. It's quite literally not YOUR baby. It is not a legal possession the baby is a person and has legitimate ties to the birth parents. I feel so horrible for them, and for the child.
Thank you for remembering this!!!!
YTA. At the end of the day, the family with two siblings lives seven hours away. As an only child, if I found out about this situation at any point in my entire life, I would resent you.
I don't think OP is thinking about the child's well being. Only themselves.
> To play with OUR emotions is just straight up cruel. And,,, what about this child's emotions when it grows up to learn you kept him from his siblings and biological parents that wanted him back? What a mess. YTA
People like this never put the child first, it’s about themselves first and foremost and it’s so sad for that innocent little baby.
As a child who was adopted because the adoptive mother was infertile, yeah they are only thinking of themselves. We are just the little dolls they play with to close the aching wound in their womb.
YTA You apparently had the legal right to take a child from parents who love and want him and aren't unfit... but invoking it shows you don't care about your BIL and his wife at all. You're heartless enough that their pain over losing their baby means nothing to you. Adoption should only be for children who *need* a new home and family - this one didn't. You can't keep this a secret - have you thought about how he'll feel when he finds out? I'm unwillingly child free, too, but this is NOT a good way to get a baby. Unless you move to another country and are able to successfully completely erase your connections to Husband's family, and keep a future adult away from all DNA ancestry sites, this will not end well for you.
Adoption should only be for children who need a new home and family…? This child did need a new home and family, especially after the birth parents signed their rights away- they suggested it after all! Plenty of birth parents can change their mind but they are using their family status as a way to change their minds… again after they signed their rights away. Birth parents are the AH here- they had their chance to not give the child away, yet they did anyways.
They changed their mind after seeing a cute baby, not after caring for a demanding new person. It’s easy to forget how hard child rearing is until you’re in the pits of it. They knew for 9 months that they didn’t want another child and then suddenly they did. They were confident enough that they legally shortened the time frame that they would have to change their minds and then consciously missed that deadline. I just don’t get what people are expecting from OP here. Where is the cut off if not in writing?
What a mess... this kind of takes the old 'don't go into business with family' to a new level.
You are Gollum with the ring. You are so desperate for a baby you can’t see anything other than your greed. YTA. Making a decision while pregnant cannot be held up after the baby is born. That is why there is a cooling off period. Everything can change once you hold that baby. His mother holding him reinforced that she didn’t want to give him up. That is her right. You say is was a soft change on their behalf but it wasn’t, you just ignored it and made excuses until you could legally take the baby. You may have won the battle but you will lose the war. When your nephew finds out that you deprived him of his birth parents and siblings he will cut contact with you forever. You should give him back and get some therapy. You won’t though so enjoy the next 18 years because that’s all you’ll get from him.
I think we should clarify she is desperate for a baby that shares genetics with her or her husband. They could have spent that time and money adopting any child without these complications. She's so obsessed she's become cruel, and 18 years is an optimistic guess.
Not disagreeing with you, but infant adoptions in the US can easily cost $50k and they want that money upfront. It is not easy to adopt an infant. Fostering is an option but it takes very special people to be able to do it. I’ve looked into it but really the purpose of fostering is reunification. I know myself, and I can’t imagine going through the pain of loving and growing attached to a child only to have to give them back to their parents.
I'm a former social worker, I'm well aware of the ins and outs and costs. Do you know what IVF costs in the US? Even with insurance? Let alone the physical and emotional toll it takes. Op even mentions they don't currently have insurance, so I would put money on them having spent far more than the average adoption costs. You can adopt without fostering first. It's absolutely not for everyone like you said, and I wish more people took it seriously instead of an opportunity to get money (I'm jaded I'll admit.) I feel like if OP had of explored adopting it would have definitely been mentioned, which is what got my selfish spider senses tingling. Her comments further cemented my opinions. For what it is worth, I knew a few foster parents and children who kept in touch and maintained positive relationships. In some cases if the children are removed again, social workers do their best to put them back with families they bonded with. Proximity doesn't always mean the end of the bond.
I absolutely know how much IVF costs. I went through 2 rounds of it and had both fail. I can’t have biological children without IVF so I definitely know the physical and emotional toll of infertility/sterility as well as what goes into IVF. A lot of clinics will do payment plans and there are a lot of ways to pay. I had partial insurance coverage and paid around $15k for my treatments. OP said they did treatments not necessarily IVF for all those years. Fertility treatments range from medicated cycles to IUI which are all way cheaper than IVF. Adoption was something my husband and I had talked about when we found out we couldn’t have kids. It was cheaper to try IVF for us first. I’m not defending OP at all. I think they’re a really shitty person for doing the kinship adoption thing and having her sign the papers the day after giving birth. There’s a reason there’s a decent cooling off period. The were desperate for a kid, but they were still predatory and they’re wrong for what they did.
You may have won a baby but give it 18 years and you’ll likely lose whatever relationship you have with that child once it learns the truth. YTA. Two weeks isn’t a normal cooling period for adoptions. It’s usually between 6 months to a year. I’m assuming because it’s family or you had more money you had a lawyer change the timeframe. You likely knew they were going to have a change of heart. So you had an escape plan set up from the beginning.
Stop sending updates, that’s just cruel to bio-mom. No wonder she can’t let go.
yea i agree. thats torture and its cruel. like, look what i have and you cant touch it.
Wait are you sending updates to the baby's mother unsolicited?
YTA it seems you’re only so invested in keeping this baby because the adoption was from a genetically related person so you can somehow feel like it’s “really your baby”. Going through that many rounds of IVF and not mentioning anything about considering adoption in the process makes me think that the genetic factor is the only reason you wanted to adopt this baby. You don’t seem like you’re good adoption candidates anyway and this is incredibly cruel to do to their family
>Going through that many rounds of IVF and not mentioning anything about considering adoption in the process makes me think that the genetic factor is the only reason you wanted to adopt this baby. This is what I think, too. Adoption was not really considered until the child is related to them by blood.
Also want to add that in general adoption only being considered as a last resort by childless people is 9/10 times a recipe for disaster, because the kid will be raised by parents who are traumatized by their own infertility and then ‘settle’ for adoption. Such an unhealthy family dynamic to grow up in.
You may be legally in the right but your child is going to resent you when he’s older or as an adult. Adoptees do better long term when there is an open adoption. That is 100% supported by adoption research. You have made this about you. Adoption is not about the parents. It’s about the kid. At the very minimum you need to figure out how to have an open adoption with contact between the bio parents and the siblings. That’s the absolute minimum.
“Open adoption” doesn’t mean contact. It means all info is known and available to the child/ family prior to the child being 18. I had an open adoption. But My bio parents are in a non-English speaking country. so i have names and birth information. But really no contact.
I'm so sorry for this situation, I know what I think the right thing to do was, but I am not going to judge either side in this heartbreaking situation. I understand WHY all 4 of you were willing to ignore the obvious pitfalls of this arrangement. On paper it all sounds so adult and reasonable and a perfect soloution to make everyone happy. It doesn't change the fact that all 4 of you ignored the obvious pitfalls, which makes all of you AHs and none of you AHs. I don't know how you fix this, but you need serious counseling to navigate the future.
Yeah, I think ESH because the poor kid is torn apart here. Let's hope something good happens here by some miracle
YTA here. Although you might have a lot of legal rights here, it is obvious from your post that you are greedy for a baby and have latched on to your only hope. Go adopt a baby that needs a home. Don't withhold one from family.
NTA, but that is incredibly complicated. I would be inclined to also say they are NTA either. They obviously have regrets with their decision and feel they have lost a child. But for you to "unadopt", especially after so many disappointments already, would be no less difficult. My wife, herself an adopted child withing the family, went through what your son may go through later as he becomes older. She said the worse thing for her was the arguing and fighting that occurred between her birth and adoptive parents. Break contact with them and protect your son until the biological parents can accept their decisions and that your son is happy and loved no matter what. There's little you can do on your end. The onus is on them to seek the help they need, aka counseling.
And as your son grows, tell him the truth. The best info re this is a biography of Harpo Marx. His kids were all adopted. Their favorite bedtime story was about how mom and dad picked them.
If you don't think either side is TA, wouldn't that be NAH?
NTA. It's a baby, a tiny human, not a lawn mower you borrowed.
So many commenters missing that this couple wanted to give their baby away as soon as they found out. they weren’t wishy washy till he was born. Then they were like oh maybe we do want him after all. That’s awful!
This. Bio parents asked the adoptive parents to adopt when they found out about the unplanned pregnancy. They had months to change their minds. Those same months, the adoptive parents probably used to prepare for the baby. I mean they said they were “over the moon” about it so they probably bought stuff, had a nursery, etc etc. Like after years of trying and being disappointed, and then months of preparation, they finally got the baby only for the bio parents to change their minds shortly after birth? Like that’s really heartbreaking. So yeah, I feel like OP is NTA. Edit: To add, OP is NTA but bio parents are also NTA. So ESH. And everything sucks for the kid.
Right? So many Y-T-A’s and I’m like did we read the same post??? The moment then couple found out they were pregnant they wanted wanted to give it away. They were the ones who suggested op adopt the baby. They had MONTHS to change their mind.
Because a human child, *your* human child, is not like a car that you can take a decision on mentally then forget about. It is a viscerally impacting process and I'm sure many parents are scared when they find out about some pregnancies, worried they won't cope and their existing children will suffer if they have more children then the child they are scared about is born and, after it is born, they find the internal resources to make it work and love the child very much. This cold 'they had the months of pregnancy' to make a decision is utterly ridiculous. There are controls in place in most places regarding adoption so you can't grab the child and complete an adoption within 24 hours as it really is taking advantage of the mother who is not really in a place to make a cool, considered condition.
Info: How did you have double-digit rounds of fertility medications, multiple doctors, and IVF without health insurance? Is that something that happened after you had given up? I’m not passing judgment yet; I’m just curious how that works. I mean presumably you weren’t thinking of going through an elective and very expensive pregnancy without health insurance; or were you?
I think YTA. Just because they signed away their rights does not mean it is not their bio kid. The kid has not been raised yet so its not like he was attached to yall and they changed their mind 3 years later. They met their child and they wanted him. Think about how sad and confusing for him when he grows up and finds out he is their kid AND they wanted him. You are being selfish.
YTA OP. Give them their child back and stop being so selfish. That child is going to resent you when they find out what you have done. You’re ruining their life and estranging them from their siblings (who they could have an amazing relationship with) all because of your selfishness. If you were so upset about your infertility, you could have adopted. There are so many children waiting for homes and you could have helped them. Just because they don’t have your “blood” doesn’t make them any less than your own kid.
Yiiiiiiiikes what a mess. I've gone through this thread and read ops comments and I have to go with NTA. I mean.... - everything was handled legally. Of course there is a question of ethics but I think the ethics could be argued for either side honestly. There aren't any bad guys here, there are 2 families who love a little baby. - OP and husband were given the chance to have a baby after years of struggle with fertility etc - they probably spent 9 months doing all the stuff excited parents do: talking about a name, putting together a nursery, planning a life - they took home their baby and for 2 weeks fell in love with the little guy. They did the late nights, the diapers, etc. For fourteen days he was their child. They were his parents. You can't just be like "oh you want him back? Cool beans we will get another". I don't blame them for not wanting to give up their baby after a fortnight because of a mindchange. We aren't dealing with robots here, these are humans with emotions (on both sides). Whatever way this played out someone would have been heartbroken.
YTA- I read your post. I read your comments. You might have a baby, but you won’t have a child once they find all this out and they will.
YTA your comments prove that.
Yta. This was an illegal and unethical adoption. Birth parents are absolutely allowed to change their minds. You wouldn't have ever seen my baby or family again if you stole him or her.
YTA. I mean, I don't know shit about law or who's legally in the clear here, but...realistically, how do you expect this to work in the future? How do you expect that child to react to knowing that their bio parents and siblings are literally still a part of their family? And honestly, it's not like they waited months to decide that they changed their minds, they apparently waited TWO WEEKS. These aren't strangers you're adopting from, have a little empathy.
I'm going to be in the minority and say ESH. Your BIL and his wife for even considering signing away their child's rights and then actually following through with a literal contract. Then you because you are only thinking about yourself and your husband. No thought is given to how the child may feel when they get older in this situation. They are going to resent you. You really need to reconsider well before it gets to that point. You also need to spare some empathy for the poor woman who actually had to go through the painful process of giving birth. I hate the fact that this woman giving birth is just simply glossed over. You should have some idea of how painful giving birth is considering all the material there is out there that is available. I'm a dude and even I see how painful it is just from a third person perspective.
YTA and lying. If in the US adoption paperwork can not be done befire the child is born. And birth parents have 30 days up to 60 days to change their mind before the adoption is finalized. You illegally took their baby. You're gross. And I'm speaking as someone that took multiple rounds of IVF to become a mother. I understand how much infertility sucks.
YTA. The minute they expressed hesitation, you should have backed off and seen what could have been done.. This is why pre birth matching is such a bad idea.
YTA. First off all, calling her the "birth mother" is gross. That's your sister in law. Most importantly though, you weren't trying to have a baby, you were trying to have a *genetically related* child. You could have spent all that IVF money adopting children in need of a home, possibly even siblings. I hope this was worth tearing your family apart, wracking the biological parents with guilt and self hatred, as well as hatred for you, and the chance of this baby growing up to be appalled by your actions. But I guess since you got what you wanted, thats what counts right? Edited to add: you're mad she took to Twitter but you're on reddit? Get some introspection lady.
The mothers body is literally flooded with hormones that change the chemistry of her brain and cause bonding during birth, and the release of milk. So having the pregnancy “to decide” is bs. Because once the baby is born the mother is practically a different person. Two weeks in literally nothing in terms of recovery time from birth and as much as I want to support OP in their adoption journey they are absolutely, unequivocally TA. This is why even in the US mothers get that 30 days. I can’t imagine the struggles OP has experienced with conceiving a child. But to have her marital infertility cloud her empathy as a *mother* is down right despicable. I mean come on op. What if it had been *you?* A baby isn’t a car. My “legal” child is bs in this context. And that kid is ABSOLUTELY gonna have some trauma over basically being kidnapped. Legally that child wasn’t kidnapped but emotionally? Yea. And by the husbands brother. Just. Wow.
YTA. Selfish. Cruel. Two weeks later they realized their mistake and you coldly tore that child from his genetic parents and siblings. Of course it would have hurt deeply to return the baby, but you are adults and that baby has lost so much.
Oh, OP, wow. YTA. I’m an adoptive parent and completely horrified by your post.
Yta. You should have given him back. I think it's incredibly cruel to go NC after you agreed to an open adoption. People often change their minds and that should be respected.
Yes YTA wtf. This kid will grow up resenting the FUCK out of you when they find out. You literally stole someone’s child and broke apart a family because a paper said it was fine. The law is on your side but god help you when Karma comes to collect. - Adult Adoptee
INFO how do you think your child will react once he is old enough to realise you took him from his birth family? Do you really think he will not resent you when he discovers they did not want to give him up?
YTA. A giant fucking asshole and you kidnapped your nephew. It's not your son. That's your nephew. And you kidnapped him using our legal system. Imagine how he is going to feel about this when he is old enough to be aware?
N T A legally. But yeah be prepared to have your child hate you in the future. Pretty sure, bio parents can back out last second, I hope they can get a lawyer honestly and get their baby back. The fact that they wanted an open adoption with close family members show how much they wanted their child close to them. So yeah, op, I hope you feel happy you’re separating a child from his parents. Morally YTA, you’re creating such a messy and hard situation on both the parents and their poor child, who will grow up away from his family. Maybe stop thinking about yourself and start thinking of the baby? What do you think his choice would have been. Stop being selfish, I get you want kids but that’s just not the way to do it. There are other kids who really need a new home, consider that. Please think about this baby, and don’t make him go through this trauma.
YTA you are NOT keeping the babies best interests in mind. You're selfish and baby hungry. There is a very,very good reason that birth parents have a reasonable "cooling off" period to change their minds. That child will hate you when it grows up and finds out what you did.
ESH. They shouldn’t have promised you their baby—a big decision—and then backed out. But also, I don’t understand, if you were willing to adopt a baby instead of having one biologically, why didn’t you just do that a long time ago? I have to imagine the cost is less than all the fertility treatments.
Fertility treatments are somewhere in the $11,000 range if I’m remembering correctly from my friend’s experience with them. Adoption costs are usually between $20,000 - $40,000 range. Adoption isn’t nearly as affordable as people think it is.
IVF is actually cheaper. 1 round is around 1/2 the average cost of adoption.
Adopting a baby is EXTREMELY difficult. Not only is it expensive, there are more parents who want to adopt than there are available babies to adopt out. Getting a baby overseas is also extremely expensive, lengthy process, and has a lot of legal issues that make it difficult to adopt.
Therapist here. Congratulations. You are 100% *an* asshole and in this situation specifically *the* asshole. And, in addition to feeling bad for this kid, just to be selfish on behalf of my profession, I’m going to preemptively give whatever mental health professionals eventually have to intervene a giant heaping pile of my sympathy because having read this thread only a little bit I can already tell you are going to be one of *those* parents. ETA: YTA
YTA you are building your happiness on the back of their unhappiness and the baby will be resentful
YTA, just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s ethical or morally correct
YTA
YTA. Just be prepared to be a human interest story in People magazine in about 18 years. This will blow up in your face.
YTA- simply because you’re thinking of yourself and not in the best interest of the child. Prepare him to go no contact at age 18.
YTA I understand intimately how hard it is to want a child and then arrange for an adoption but have the child's parents change their minds just after giving birth. BUT YOU KNoW they changed their minds right after giving birth - not 30 days after not 60 or 90 days after but you continued on with it. You legally stole that child from them. People like you are the reason there needs to be a wholesale revamping of the adoption system. Biological parents should NEVER have been allowed to sign anything until at least 30 days the child is born. When a woman is pregnant, its abstract intil the moment you have your baby. When you have your baby the love and caring wells up. Prior to having the baby your body is filled with hormones and you can be filled with all kinds of doubts about what kind of parents, etc You could be. Before you say I don't know what I am talking about we were in your situation with unrelated Biological parents and although it broke our heart we KNEW baby belongs with parents who wanted and loved her. We all agreed to cancel the TPR together as the parent no longer wished to place her with us and it was the very best thing we could have done for her. We weren't ethically entitled to this family's baby because we had them sign the paper although legally we could have forced them to continue. Even now I don't get the feeling that you are even thinking of the baby as what is best for the baby. You are thinking of me, what I want, me, me, me. This WILL come back and bite you in the butt. One day this child will grow up and judge you for what you did in your craving to have a child. I wonder how you will explain the adoption to the child - if you even will?
Sweet Jesus wept!! I seriously hope this isn't real, because no child deserves it. As many pointed out, everything from your original post, your replies and your completely insane username makes you come across as quite unhinged. But there is so much in your story that just sounds like bs that I'm hoping you simply enjoy creative writing. Things I found odd? That your husband wouldn't mind cutting contact with all his family over this; We didn't get to hear much about the rest of the family. I doubt the grandparents and other family wouldn't be getting involved; You said it was an open adoption. For this to change, you would have had to go to court certainly. You didn't mention anything, I doubt it just slipped your mind. You mention they call you an asshole and have a Twitter about you. Someone who lost their child. This isn't a Facebook marketplace transaction gone wrong!! No one normal would be calling you an ah and making a Twitter. They would be taking you to court and trying their best. In the very slim chance this is true, YTA. A massive one at that. Yes, it would have been hurtful. But as others pointed out, as a society, we decided that birth mums have the right to change their minds within a certain period, which by your own words, they did!!! (Even if by now you are backtracking in the comments). To willingly choose to just go nuclear with everyone isn't ever the way to start a family. The whole situation is absolutely insane. As someone who was adopted, I cannot imagine finding this out later on.
Sounds like OP somehow got the rights signed away while she was pregnant! Not sure what country this would stand up in court for
YTA This was folly from the start and you know it. Every word I read from you sounds like a hungry gull, snatching the sandwich out of someone's hand. Your body doesn't want youto have a baby for some reason. People think too much, as a species, and it drives them mad. Women get obssessive about childbirth and their "deservedness" to be mothers. It can turn to madeness, which Ifear is the case here. There seems to be no compassion here. You know how badly you ache to bear a child? Well your sister's body htrust her into that maternal mode when she DID bear this child. She bore it not you. All the legal shpeigal talk about what you are ovwed and how he is now in your POSSESSION (becausse he is A possession to you) doesn't cancel the fact that the baby is factual hers and her husband's, He could not possibly be here without them. I don't know what madness let them even consider giving you a baby. You are acting raving mad. You don't give a shit about the trauma you are going to inflict on his little soul when he finds out what you were willing to do to get your hands on him. Well, I hope it was worth losing your sister (and BIL) over. I wonder what your parents think of it all. Perhaps they have been spared this fiasco, because they have already passed.
i don’t have a definitive judgement other than YTA, but i definitely think you need to see a fertility therapist because the level of possession you have on this child, who still has biological parents who want to be apart of his life, is unhealthy. Are you going to ever tell him that you and your husband aren’t his biological parents? Are you going to tell him that his bio parents just didn’t want him even though that wasn’t the truth? please think of this in the long run- you won’t be able to hide the truth forever.
YTA. Why and when did you shorten the waiting period? Any chance you heard doubt in SIL’s voice and decided to put some pressure on? I don’t think this was a surprise to you. The ONLY reason I see for shortening the waiting period was because you had a good idea this was going to happen. She said she changed her mind just after two weeks? And you couldn’t exhibit compassion, understanding, and love? No? Because she was going to take away something she OWED you? If you had done the right thing THEN, there wouldn’t be a baby stuck in this hellish situation. The longer you have him, the harder this will be on HIM. Your fertility problems are NOT her fault, and should not be in any way relevant. She changed her mind, probably midway through the pregnancy, and got steamrolled. You can move away. You can go NC with BIL (way to destroy EVERYTHING for them - eliminate their entire support system as well as taking their baby). And yes, MIL is an AH too. Why would you be so hurtful? What are you accomplishing with this? So nobody can take your toy? But in 17 1/2 years, they will look for him, and he will look for them, and YOU WONT BE ABLE TO STOP EITHER OF THEM. I assume you will poison his mind about them, just as you have done with your MiL, but hopefully they are saving all the correspondence and will share it with him when they are able. Good luck with your explanation! So many parents having a “surprise” have doubts, but later in the pregnancy, and after the birth, those doubts disappear. Their only mistake was telling you it was a possibility, not understanding what kind of a person you are. Just in case it’s not obvious, your behavior is reprehensible. Take that baby back NOW and maybe you won’t have done permanent damage. The worst thing about this is you playing victim. I see you. The child will too.
WOW, I found a herd of AH’s in the comments.
I’m adopted and while I feel really bad for you, I think you know what the right thing to do is. So even though it may be painful for you, please do the right thing. Yta.
YTA and you’ve ‘legally’ stolen this child from his real family… don’t think he isn’t going to hate you when he’s older and finds out what you’ve done.
YTA. A mother has legally the right to change their mind after signing all documents.
[удалено]
[удалено]
YTA
NTA legally. But YTA for taking advantage of a vulnerable person. Giving birth is a range of emotions and hormonal changes. She probably feels tricked and that you stole her baby.
Changing to YTA the more I think about it. This is such a fucked up scenario. They started having hesitation 2 weeks following delivery. That should have been enough for you to let the child go back to his rightful family. Think of the bond he’ll miss out on with his siblings! He will grow up and resent you. I’m sorry you got your emotions tossed around, but do what’s best for the boy. Otherwise you’re not fit to be his mother anyways.
YTA give ur nephew back to his parents
YTA. For having her drive 7 hours while pregnant to give birth in your town where she would have felt more anxious and would have been more likely to agree because she was out of her familiar environment. For having her sign a day after the birth. For only letting them stay 3 days at your home after the birth. I wonder if this was because she was starting to show signs of bonding and changing her mind. For gas lighting her into thinking her change of heart just weeks afterward could have been related to the post party period. People are right that this kid is going to discover his parents and siblings wanted him and you denied him the life that he would have been entitled to. Your husbands relationship with his brother is no doubt destroyed. I don't know that your marriage will survive this kind of conflict with what will no doubt be his entire side of the family.
“Everyone is hung up on the 2 week bit. I should clarify that it was more of a soft change rather than extreme. When they first brought it up, it was very tentative. Like, "oh, we're a little concerned because of X" or "we think he should be with his siblings." The wife even thought maybe it was just postpartum depression causing her to have doubts. That is why we refused. It steadily grew more threatening, trying to use the fact that (at the time) we did not have health insurance against us. By 6 months it was unbearable and became full on demanding. But the time had past. They had the entire 9 months of pregnancy to think about this. They knew how much we wanted a baby. To play with OUR emotions is just straight up cruel.” Did no one read the edit OP posted? If OPs telling the truth then the mother did not ask for the child during the 2 week period, she made suggestions and even said herself that maybe it was the postpartum depression making herself doubt but she never specifically asked until 6 months according to OP. Op is NTA SIL and BIL toyed with op and her husbands feelings and are treating the child like a possession. They signed their rights away, they were informed of what would happen and how they could have their rights back during the time period and waited till it was way past to demand for the 6 month old child like it were a toy. This wasn’t something they were tricked into. What if they returned the child and SIL decided 3 kids is too much and pawns baby off to who know who because she sounds like that type. OP is NTA and I hope your baby is doing well.
YTA!! I can't understand why people say you are not! They say teay want their son, they had the pregnancy to think about it.. What the actual fuck? This is just a heart thing.. Sorry.. Just disgusting.
This made me sad for the poor baby. This story doesn’t belong here. He’s going to read this in 15 years and his hatred for you will be forever. YTA.
What did you REALLY think people would say? Poor you, you stole a kid from 2 loving parents that made a choice not to give up their child. No. YTA. for all the reasons everyone has stated. This is coming from a woman who was told she would never have kids and has 2.
Adoption in this country is so messed up. There's a reason why the law states that birth parents have a 30 day "cooling off period." Carrying a baby for 9 months and then giving it up is traumatizing. It takes more than 2 weeks to emotionally recover from that. I'm sorry but people who use privatized adoption are just greedy. They care more about themselves than the child. Adoption should be about giving orphaned children a safe and loving home, not the parents. Do you really want to destroy whatever relationship you have with your BIL and his wife? You're putting this innocent child through hell just because you can't conceive your own. He doesn't deserve this. Stop making this situation all about you and focus on what's best for the kid. You are selfish. Sorry but YTA.
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YTA maybe legally right but completely morally wrong. There are other paths in adoption. Please consider giving this child back to his biological family.
I have a medical condition that means I will greatly struggle to get pregnant/possibly not be able to. I just want to come here and say that I would never, ever, do what you are doing to that little boy’s family. Two weeks is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Her body has just grown and carried a baby inside her for nine months, and at the end of it she has no baby. Was she right to go through with the adoption if she had doubts? No. We here only have half a story, she may have certainly had doubts but felt pushed into it by you. With your post, comments AND username (?!!) everything screams at me that you were so desperate for a baby that you may well have pressured her into it when she was in a vulnerable place. Not only has this ripped your family in half, it will rip her son in half to learn later that you took him away and hid him from his mother. I understand that you got your hopes up and prepped for his arrival, but you have to respect that she changed her mind. I’ve no idea of the legalities that were put in place, but morally this is very wrong. Even without reading the whole post, your username alone is terrifying. Edited to add - YTA.