Mother So Desperate For Another Child – Forced Her 14-Year-Old Daughter To Inseminate Herself
In “How Terribly Awful” news today comes this story of a mom who adopted three babies, because she couldn’t have children of her own and had undergone a sterilization procedure, and she wanted another one so desperately that she forced her adopted daughter to impregnate herself and have a child for her. The mother was denied approval to adopt a fourth child so she decided to partake in artificial insemination, but by using her fourteen-year-old daughter as the surrogate. From The Guardian:
The mother resorted to the AI programme because she was determined to have a fourth child, and because there was no other way of achieving this,” said the judge. The daughter “allowed her body to be used by her mother because she loves her”, and though she did not want to take part, she has said in interviews she was not “brave enough” to tell her mother.
The daughter underwent insemination seven times over a two year period, and miscarried at age 14 before having a baby at age 16. The mother told social services that her daughter had gotten pregnant by a boy who left town, but that she would raise the child for her daughter.
The truth was only discovered at the birth. Midwives were alarmed at the “pushy and insensitive” mother, who tried to prevent her daughter breastfeeding the newborn, saying “we don’t want any of that attachment thing”. Noticing the daughter’s reluctance to hand the baby to her mother, they called in child protection workers when the mother attempted to remove the baby from the ward.
The saddest part about this is that the daughter went along with her mother’s plan because she thought it would make her mother love her more.
The daughter, who had no friends of her own age, later told investigators she was “shocked, pretty shocked” when her mother first asked her but also thought, “if I do this ”¦ maybe she will love me more”. In agreeing, she said “feelings of gratitude for my adoption influenced how I behaved”.
The court was shown a Mother’s Day list drawn up by the daughter of things she could give her mother, which included a picture of a positive pregnancy test kit.
It’s all so sad and awful and sounds like the plot to some V.C. Andrews book. I can’t imagine ever being so desperate to have a child, especially when you have three other ones, that you would resort to forcing one of your teenage daughters have one for you. And the fact that she drew up this Mother’s day list just breaks my heart. There was no additional news on the siblings or the baby, but I’m sure the minors have been placed in custody. I just hope the sixteen year old is able to heal from this and find some sort of peace in her life after living with such a selfish, abusive mother.
(photo: Elizabeth Chapman/shutterstock)
