A man finding out that his child isn’t biologically his is sad, but not unheard of. However, in this case, the opposite happened. A mom was shocked and heartbroken to learn that her 2-year-old son wasn’t actually hers at all.
The woman is seeking a divorce after finding out her son, who was conceived through IVF and surrogacy, isn’t biologically hers.
The 36-year-old woman explained in a Reddit post that she’s been with her husband for the last 10 years and married for 7.
“I had always wanted to be a mom,” the woman shared. However, after four years of trying to conceive, she was “devastated” to learn that she had a medical condition that would prevent her from carrying a baby to term.
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It only got worse after she underwent major surgery in the hopes of increasing her fertility. Complications resulted in a partial hysterectomy.
Still wanting to be parents, she and her husband decided to have a child via a surrogate.
The pair quickly learned that IVF and surrogacy is a very difficult and expensive process, often costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s no wonder only about 750 babies are born through IVF and surrogacy each year. Luckily — or unluckily, in hindsight — one of their friends stepped up.
“My close friend since college who’d already had two kids of her own offered to serve as the surrogate for us to cut down on costs,” she wrote. “After two disappointing IVF sessions that did not result in pregnancy, she became pregnant on the third try and carried a boy to term for us.”
“I was so happy and busy after the birth, between being a mom and returning to work after a four-week parental leave, so I didn’t notice any warning signs,” she added.
She was shocked to learn that her son wasn’t biologically hers.
Busy being the breadwinner — working three jobs to cover the bills and anticipated medical and legal expenses — the woman was exhausted and drained most of the time. As a result, she didn’t notice at first how close her husband and friend/surrogate had become.
“I would sometimes come home from my weekend job to find her already hanging out at our house when my husband was there,” she admitted. “I chalked it up as innocuous, and it’s good for her to know my husband better since she was in the process of hopefully carrying our child for us. I was grateful to have someone helping us have a child.”
After the birth of their son, the woman was surprised that the baby had brown eyes when both she and her husband had blue eyes. Again, she ignored her unease.
However, her suspicions became impossible to ignore after her son had a blood test at a doctor’s appointment. The results “showed that he had a blood type that is not biologically possible to have with me as his mother,” she wrote.
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At first, the woman worried that the fertility clinic was at fault, somehow implanting the wrong embryo. She even started setting up lawyer consultations to potentially sue the clinic. However, a DNA parentage test revealed that, while she wasn’t the child’s biological mother, her husband was the father.
“My husband confessed that he’d slept with my friend (our surrogate) on a few different occasions during our struggle to have her get pregnant with our embryos,” she wrote. “Livid and absolutely broken at the same time doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel!”
It was the ultimate betrayal, and while she was busy working three jobs just to keep their family afloat, her husband was going behind her back with their surrogate, a woman that she considered her close friend.
It’s even more heartbreaking knowing her own fertility struggles and how desperately she wanted to start a family with her husband. After raising her son for the past two years, she now has to reckon with the fact that the child she thought was hers was a product of her husband’s deception and infidelity.
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The woman decided to seek a divorce from her husband after learning the truth.
“I immediately left home and stayed at a hotel for almost a week before asking my parents to let me stay at home for a while,” she wrote. “I admit I left our son with him. I am now filing for divorce because he cheated and betrayed me in the worst possible way.”
Both her husband and the surrogate have tried apologizing multiple times, but she refuses to hear it. On top of divorcing her husband, she’s seeking legal advice on how to give up her parental rights to the 2-year-old boy because she doesn’t want to be financially responsible for the child that isn’t biologically hers.
“I have grown to love him,” she said of the child, “but at the same time it angers me so much looking at him and seeing the resemblance of the girl who was supposed to be my friend.”
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“I mentioned before that his eyes are brown. Now that I know the truth, I keep noticing more and more resemblances,” she continued. “I worry I will take my anger out on him. I don’t feel I am the safest person to be around him right now with everything going on.”
It’s an incredibly messy and heartbreaking situation that she’s found herself in. The woman must surround herself with loved ones and friends who care about her well-being and will be by her side to help her weather this storm.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.
