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We were told two weeks ago that my husband was the father of a fourteen year old girl that he never knew about. (This happened before we knew each other) We received the paternity results yesterday and she is definitely his child. It's a bit of a convoluted story because my brother-in-law has known about this all along and never told us. He knew about it before he knew my husband and once he met him he didn't feel it was his place to tell. His aunt (bro in law) is the grandmother who is raising the child. Apparently the mother was 17 when the child was born and the grandparents raised her. I am told that it was always known that my husband was the father but the grandparents wanted her and did not want my husband to know about her.
A few years ago the child starts asking questions about who her father is and they tell her - but tell her that she can't say anything to him because he didn't know. She has been around us every year at my niece's birthday parties and we had NO idea! Even worse - for her to know and not be able to say anything, I can't imagine how that made her feel.
She is at the age where she is really pushing because she wants to meet her father and they finally realized that if they didn't tell us, she was going to tell us herself and they had no idea how that would turn out. So the grandmother finally told us.
We are told there was some discussion a few years ago about telling us but they decided not to because they were afraid we would take her away from them.
I know it must have been difficult to come forward with this, but it's very hard right now to feel much compassion for the grandparents. They did to my husband exactly what they were afraid he might do to them. My husband's mother passed away last year never knowing about her grandchild. My husband has been deprived of 14 years of his daughter's life. He has always wanted a girl. It hurts him very much to know that he has missed so much of her life and that she never had a chance to know his mom.
I honestly don't know what our rights are now. They say that they adopted her but they would have had to say they didn't know who the father was to make that happen. Of course this is all very fresh and although we've had conversations with the grandmother, we haven't had a chance to sit down with both grandparents and truly find out their expectations just yet. We truly want what's best for the child. We also have a son (her younger brother) who will be impacted by this as well. It's just so hard to fathom what is best until we get a chance to know each other. We are not certain whether they are going to freely let us have contact with her or not. We want to give her every opportunity to get to know us and we want to know and love her.
Hopefully we'll have more answers soon.
I must say that this is a heart wrenching experience from the biological father's side when he has no idea and is given no choice. He would have raised her had he been given the opportunity.
We are thankful to God for this blessing that we have been given and pray that he will give us the strength to be patient and understanding.
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