‘They STOLE her baby’: Parents Trick Their 16-Year-Old Into Signing Her Baby's Adoption Papers, Then After 24 Years of No Contact They Try to Reconcile, Daughter Flat-Out Refuses

Author image for Jesse Kessenheimer
Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Sep 8, 2024 6:00 AM EDT

Plenty of things are a challenge when you're a teenager. You in the thick of discovering your personality, your style, your ideologies, and the things you like to do, the last thing any teenager needs is an over-complication clogging up the formation of their cerebral cortex–which is why it's so gnarly if you get pregnant and become a teen mom. 

Adolescence is tough enough without a wriggling kiddo screaming in your arms while you're studying for the SAT. 

So any teen parent who wants to keep their baby relies heavily on their own parents–newly promoted grandma and grandpa–to help them out. The woman in this next story, however, discovered that her parents weren't willing to be helpful and instead of supporting their 16-year-old daughter's decision to keep her baby, they went behind her back to arrange a secret adoption. 

After literally tricking their teen daughter into signing away her rights to her own baby, the family (naturally) imploded. With a maternity ward reeking of moderate kidnapping, the daughter was rightfully fuming and went 'No Contact' with her parents immediately and for the next several decades. Now, 24 years later, her parents have come crawling back to impose themselves on her current happy ending. 

Keep scrolling for the story of two teenagers who built a happy life and a healthy family for themselves despite having the worst parents on earth.

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  • 01
    "They don't deserve to see the happiness you achieved without them"
    via cottonbro studio - Pexels via Canva
  • 02
    No contact with my parents for 24 years because they tricked me into giving up my baby. WIBTA for refusing to see them before my mother dies?
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 03
    I was 15 when I got pregnant, 16 when I had my baby. Immediately after giving birth my mother had forms for me to sign, telling me they were hospital admin forms. She was my mother, I believed her. They were actually adoption papers. My baby was taken
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 04
    right out of my arms and I didn't see him again for 20 years. The father of my baby and I were still together when I gave birth. His parents were not jumping for joy that we were kids having a baby, yet they
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 05
    were all in to help us. They helped me to get a job as a waitress in my boyfriend's uncle's restaurant. I worked nights and weekends. My boyfriend worked in his dad's auto parts store. Every dollar we made we were saving for the baby. It wasn't much but we were committed to the family we had started.
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 06
    My parents were not so supportive and kicked me out as soon as I told them. They harassed me constantly to get an abortion, then demanded I have the baby adopted. Once my dad attacked my boyfriend on the street, and my mother accosted his mother in the middle of the mall. I stopped talking to them for months.
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 07
    Then one day they called and said they had a change of heart, they didn't want to lose me and the baby. I was wary but hopeful. My boyfriend's parents encouraged me to give them a chance. We all regretted it in the end.
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 08
    When I went into labor I was at my parents house. They took me to the hospital. They told me they couldn't get ahold of my boyfriend or his parents. They promised me they would keep trying until they got someone on the phone. They lied.
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 09
    I left that hospital heartbroken and betrayed. I went to my boyfriend and his parents and we grieved together. Days later my parents had me taken from their home and forced back to their house. I ran away, they dragged me back, again and again. They finally let me go
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 10
    When I was 22 my boyfriend and I got married. It wasn't a grand event. We were married at the courthouse then went back to my in-laws for a backyard BBQ reception. A year later we welcomed our second child into the world.
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 11
    The trauma from the events of the first time I gave birth hit us both hard, especially my husband. I would not have had it any other way but he still demanded to be in the delivery room with me. I wanted my MiL there with us. too. His dad and siblings waited on guard in the waiting
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 12
    room and outside the hospital. Overkill? Maybe, but we felt safer knowing there were people there for us making sure nothing happened. I have given birth to a total of four babies. We love each and every one of them, and yet our hearts ached and yearned for our firstborn. Every day I
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 13
    thought of him and hoped that he went to a good family that loved him. Every year on his birthday my husband would buy him a matchbox car and I would bake him a rhubarb sponge pudding. We had no idea if he even liked rhubarb sponge pudding and matchbox cars, or if he even
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 14
    knew what they were, but we did it anyway. My husband isn't a fan of cake so I imagined our son also wasn't a fan. We would stick a candle in the sponge, sing the song, wish him a long and happy life, and take a photo of us and the kids around his rhubarb sponge pudding. It may seem
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 15
    stupid to some to keep that wound open, but it was how we coped with his loss. Four years ago I was out of town with my oldest daughter at a softball camp when our firstborn showed up at our home. My husband called to tell me to get home immediately. He didn't tell me
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 16
    why but I could hear something in his voice I'd never heard before. Thinking something was wrong, I pulled my daughter out of camp and drove home. I can't quite find the words or express how I felt at what happened when we arrived home.
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 17
    Today we are in regular contact with our eldest. We talk often, video calls mostly. We like to see him, and he likes to see us when we talk. He games with his younger brothers, and annoys the heck out of his sister, and they adore him. He was adopted by an older couple that couldn't have kids and was an only
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 18
    child. He loves having siblings. He has spent Christmas with us every year since he came back into our lives and stays for a month. For his birthday we all fly to him and stay for a week. I imagined correctly. He doesn't like cake. He doesn't like rhubarb either so I bake him a peach sponge pudding.
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 19
    We also fly to him on the anniversary week of his parents deaths. They died within days of each other. His father found us years before when our son first told his parents that one day he would like to meet us. I am so grateful to the man and woman that adopted him..
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 20
    They gave him a good life with lots of love, and raised a good son. I wish I could have known them. Thanked them. A few weeks ago my dad contacted my in-laws. My mother is dying. They have regrets and want to repair our relationship before she goes.
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 21
    Every part of me is against it. They can both choke to death on their regrets for all I care. There is not one ounce of me even a little bit willing to give them that. I hate them for what they did to us, for stealing our son. For taking him right out of my arms. All
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 22
    that time lost because of their cruelty and their selfishness. I hate them. My husband has no love for them at all, but he thinks it would be good for me to show them how well we've done. How good our life has been without them. He wants them to meet our kids. All our
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 23
    kids. He wants them to come face to face with the child they took from us. He wants to rub in their faces all they've missed out on and leave them with new regrets. I don't think they deserve to lay their eyes on so much goodness.
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 24
    But I think of my son and the good life he had. The good people that gave him that life. I can't say we would have been able to give him that. Who knows what life a couple of teenaged parents would have been able to provide. Maybe we would've had the life we have if we had kept him. Maybe not. My FiL says probably not.
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 25
    The people who mean the most to me vary in their opinions about the situation but they know us. They know more of our history than I wrote here. I'm hoping for impartiality from Reddit. Wibta if I don't give my parents a chance?
    via Sensitive-History9
  • 26
    Texan2020katza • 1d ago You know your heart, if you've never wavered on wanting to connect with your parents, don't do it. They have nothing for you, they never have.
    via Texan2020katza
  • 27
    Pretty 865-Artwork 1d ago ΝΤΑ • I am also a birthmother. My youngest son was adopted by elderly people who have since died. He is now 23 years old and lives with his siblings in our home state. I have 4 children total and he is living with 2 right now. All worked out well. Congrats on him finding you!
    via Pretty865-Artwork
  • 28
    edenburning 1d ago • You are NTA no matter what you decide to do about your parents. Do whatever gives you the most peace. On a lighter note that rhubarb cake sounds amazing.
    via edenburning
  • 29
    • KandyShopp 1d ago They stole your baby, even if you did choose to go the adoption route, you could have done what I believe is called an open adoption where you could have still been in your sons life, but more as an aunt or uncle. They chose to steal your baby, regardless of where you may or may not have been it was ultimately your choice to make, and they stole that from
    via KandyShopp
  • 30
    you. I say, send a card, picture of you and ALL your kids, tell them what they have missed and what they will continue to miss. No birthdays, no holidays, they will never see their grandchildren open presents, they will never learn their grandchildren's favorite colors or foods, they lost that chance when they gave away their first grandchild, and lied to you! Nta.
    via KandyShopp
  • 31
    No-Gene-4508 1d ago If you go... go alone. They don't deserve to see the happiness you achieved without them.
    via No-Gene-4508

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