Thomas: A number of posters have said it is important to track down the biological father. May I offer yet another differing opinion?
Your wife became pregnant due to a (sorry for the slang) “one-night stand”. For you two to spend a lot of time to track down a man who may likely be totally shocked and disappointed that this ever happened seems to be, possibly, a waste of energy. With all that you are going through, how much energy to you have to spare? Your wife’s guilt feelings would be dredged up all over again. I could almost guarantee that the biological father is not going to respond with a whole bunch of loving, financial, or emotional support. He’s going to be wishing you two are just a figment of his imagination and would quietly go away. He may a family of his own to deal with, or even multiple families.
You may think its necessary to track him down “for the medical history” or some such, but realize that many, many people did not have their family tree and medical histories in their lifetimes and they got along OK. And if you are think that the bio-dad has “rights” that need to be dealt with, you are overthinking this.
Don’t mean to be discouraging…just hoping you are concentrating on the more important issues: you and your wife’s relationship healing, her maternal health, and general adjustment to becoming parents.
I have to reiterate the opinion to locate the birthfather; not out of duty to him (although, it can be argued that there is a duty), but out of a duty to the child. True, many people do not have their medical history, but does that make it right? Especially when the opportunity is available for that biological history to be available with just a little effort?
You might think I’ve gotten along ok without my medical history, but you’d be an outsider looking in, and you’d be wrong. I don’t discuss how much it hurts, even just a little bit, when I have to tell my doctor ‘no medical history’…when my kids are being tested for possible deadly diseases, and again say, no medical history, because of my adoption. When I’m in the hospital with major heart malfunction, and saying, ‘no medical history’. Just because it happens and people think it’s not a big deal, doesn’t mean that they are right.
And it’s possible that he has other children; what if one of them, or I, had a life or death issue that could be solved by a biological member of the ‘other’ family. I’d have grave guilt if I could have saved someone’s life, but couldn’t, since we didn’t know each other at the time, but found out later.
It’s not about having another ‘daddy’ in the picture, or even different siblings.
“Sorry baby B; we loved you so much we wanted to keep you, even though we
could have found your birthfather, but chose not to; we didn’t care about your medical future, nor your children, our grandchildren’s medical future, because it was uncomfortable for us to face him. Our short term uncomfortableness trumps your biological/medical needs of a lifetime.”
On another note, this gentleman has chosen at this time, to be the baby’s father. What happens down the line may or may not have happened with or without this child. I’m appalled and saddened at those of you calling him names, questioning his manhood, simply because you couldn’t do what he is doing. He is doing what is right in HIS eyes, and what he believes is right in God’s eyes. You might want to take a look at yourselves and why this bothers YOU so much. Are you jealous of his strength? Have you made a different decision and now regret it? So you’re taking it out on a stranger who is reaching out on the internet for support? He has been remarkably patient, kind to all the responses here, even the hateful ones. I don’t know what I’d do in that situation, and I pray I am never put to the test.
OP, there may be a point that this would be wise to leave this thread, if at any time you feel it is drawing you down, influencing you negatively, and quits helping you get through this. God bless and keep both you and your wife, and the child, during the difficult times ahead.
