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Comment by J.

May 16, 2009 @ 7:41 pm

Hi, Well here is some hope for you. I lost my daughter 1 month after she was born. I feel like I was kind of in the same situation as you. Well she will be 18 Monday and she found me on Facebook a few months ago. We have been talking online and I had my first phone conversation with her a couple of weeks ago. I now realize how much I do love her still. Hopefully one day your daughter will come looking for you. Keep your head up and try to find her. You`ll be glad you did. J.

Comment by Luise

May 17, 2009 @ 6:53 am

Dear J. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience. It’s worth it’s weight in gold. Blessings, Luise

Comment by J.

May 27, 2009 @ 4:15 pm

I would like to add what I am currently going through right now. My daughter, 19, has been searching for her father for several years. We had an on again/off again relationship for a little over 2 years and when I became pregnant, he was going through some legal woes and wasn’t ready to accept his responsibility. So, my daughter found him and her grandfather. She and I saw them on May 2, 2009 and this was the first time she had ever met them. The reunion was more than hoped for, as not only was my daughter delighted with having found her biological father, he, and his father, were equally excited to welcome her into their lives and hearts. My ex came up again this past weekend and spent 4 nights and 5 days with us. He and I have had numerous conversations, specifically with him asking me how to be a ‘good dad’ to her after all these years. He is petrified of scaring her away. My daughter on the other hand is having a difficult time adjusting to having a ‘dad’ around and has sent him on his way. He is crushed and confused. She is confused. Both of them need time to meld as father/daughter and I have to give him credit, he did a better job of ‘bending over backwards’ for her than she did for him. I was apprehensive when she first announced she wanted to find him. Fear that she would get hurt. As it turns out, she is the one hurting him. I am extremely disappointed with the direction things are now going. I’m sad for her that she had him pictured as a knight in shining armour, when in fact, he is just a good hearted father, wanting to try to make up for lost time. I’m sad for him, as I know this man has a good heart and would never harm her, yet she did that exact thing to him… she broke his heart. Now where do we all go? J.

Comment by Luise

May 27, 2009 @ 4:32 pm

Dear J.: It sounds like you are being amazingly supportive and understanding to both of them. It up to them, you know. They will either work it out or they won’t. Your daughter is tripping over her own expectations and she’s the one in the driver’s seat. Blessings, Luise

Comment by R.

July 15, 2009 @ 10:43 pm

Hi All, Just wanted to add another experience to the conversation. My daughter was born when I was 22, just after I had moved a few hours from home to finish my degree. Her mother and I were/are completely incompatible, to everyone’s dismay. For a very long time, things were so bad between us, we were not in contact at all, and I didn’t see her or my daughter. 6 years ago, after my daughter had just turned 6, her mother wrote me suggesting that it would be good if our daughter could know who her father was. I was working far from home then and was able to make a visit about a month after receiving her letter. After our first meeting, I was very excited and happy, and it seemed that my daughter was happy to meet me as well. Her mother and I tried to make an appropriate arrangement for me to visit, (two times a month or so, due to distance) and for occasional phone calls (6yr olds are not easy to have phone conversations with for long, haha.) After about 5 months of this, her mother decided that in fact it would be better for me not to be a part of my daughter’s life (due to her own expectations of my occasional presence having some meaning for her personal life- clearly not something I had in mind.) She explained that she would not like for me to see my daughter, and also that i should no longer call to speak with her on the phone. After trying through the summer months to contact them, and returning to live in our home state, I decided to pursue visitation and child support proceedings– even my paternity had never been legally established by this point. This process took about 4 months to become finalized during which I was granted supervised visitations bi-weekly, ending with a “standard” visitation schedule every other week/holiday with extended times in summer and at Christmas. This was about 4 and a half years ago. Two years ago, I moved out of the country due to work, and have explained in writing and arranged with my daughter’s mother that I would still like to maintain the child support agreement, and to have my daughter for two weeks at Christmas and the prescribed month in the summer until I am coming back to the states (with about 6 months to a year to go). I know that this has been difficult for my daughter,and for me as well, since we were seeing each other on a fairly consistent basis for some time. For the past couple of years though, it has not been as much, although our times we do have are at least guaranteed, even if spread far apart. My daughter is now turning 12 next week, and coming into her own emotionally. I am not able to be here with her regularly, and it is obviously having an affect on her and her comfort level with me, she is easily becoming more distant with me, where before she was quited happy to see me, now there is a distance which is growing between us. How can I help her to feel more comfortable with the fact that I am coming back soon, and we will be able to spend more regular amounts of time together, when it seems more often now that this is an idea which is very unsettling to her? I have no intention of abandoning her or dropping out of her life, on the contrary, I am anxiously awaiting my green light to come back home so we can get back on our previous track? It is so bad now, that she is not even comfortable hugging me or calling me “dad” as she used to. She is angry that I was not a part of the first half of her life, and this is not a situation that is so easy to explaining to a budding 12 year old. Truthfully it is becoming a little unsettling for the both of us, and I don’t want to lose her emotionally. Thanks for any thoughts and suggestions, R.

Comment by Luise

July 16, 2009 @ 9:45 am

Dear R.: I doubt that you can “get back on track” with your daughter. She has been subjected to so much on-again-off-again parenting that you may have to stat all over when you get back.

It would probably be wise of offer her counseling, as well. Blessings, Luise

Comment by J.

March 29, 2010 @ 1:24 pm

I just found out that I have a 10 year old daughter. I have never met her or spoke to her. She lives in another state and that state sent me for a dna test which came back positive. I have not seen her mother in almost 11 years. I heard threw the grapevine over the years she had a baby but she was living with a guy when I was seeing her. I have a 3 yr. old daughter whom I am a full-time father too. I think of all the sweet things she does and says and then i think of how i have missed all these moments with my 10 yr. old daughter. I keep asking myself why did i not go to her state to pursue it when people told me she had a baby. My family tells me that i was 16 when she was born and that i didnt know if she was mine, but this does not relieve the guilt that i have and deserve. I feel bad for her not knowing her father all these years. I have been able to find her mother’s information off the internet since I found out. I plan on making contact I just don’t know where to begin. I mean she is 10, she is old enough to have an opinion, she may not want to know me. But God-willing she does want to know me, where do i start? what do i say? Should I write her first? Call first? What do i say to her when i first see her? I am a strange man she has never met I want her to be comfortable. 10 years is a long time to make up for. i hate she missed out on that time of having the love my 3 yr. old daughter has from me, and the same for myself. And what do I tell my 3 yr. old daughter? She is not going to understand why all of a sudden she has a 10 year old sister. I just want to do what is right and best for both of my children. Please help. Sincerely, J.

Comment by Luise

March 30, 2010 @ 7:11 am

What a wonderful, sensitive person you are. Your 10 year-old daughter is lucky to have you turn up in her life. On the other side of the coin, you may have been included in her life because her mother wants money, not a dad for her daughter. There are endless possibilities here. What I would do is talk to a child psychologist, not just about how to break the ice after a 10 year absence, but about how to proceed from there. And I would stay in touch with that professional as this drama unfolds in your life so you can handle it in the best way possible. You need an advocate, to my way of thinking.

Comment by J.

April 4, 2010 @ 8:54 pm

I have the doosey here, when I was 15 my girlfriend had a baby, and our parents separated us immediately. My parents filled my head with rubbish about how she was not with only me, she had other boyfriends, which I now find out was not true. She married when she was 17 and our son has always believed that man was his father. He adopted my son when he was 4. I finally found him and his mom on facebook this year. I contacted his mom, who was surprisingly happy to hear from me. She recently told him that his biological father came looking for him, but he has seemed uninterested, he has my phone and email, but is not contacting me. He is 24 now, I feel such guilt and remorse for not being there, but I was unable to find his mom until now. I am having a hard time waiting for it to sink in and for him to email me or call. I have waited 24 years, it’s only been a couple of weeks for him. I am having trouble being patient…

Comment by Luise

April 4, 2010 @ 9:57 pm

Your son may feel he has waited 24 years and not be remotely interested. The ball is in his court and I hope his curiosity gets the best of him, soon. I don’t know anything you can do but wait and hope that something comes of this.

Comment by ashley

April 25, 2010 @ 2:50 pm

To all you dads out there that wonder if its worth “intruding” into you lost childrens lifes it so is. I am 29 and have never met my father. My mother told me he droped her off at the laundry matt while she was still pregnate and never came back. Later after years of feeling like he never wanted to know me she said he came back but she decided it would be best for me to never know him. The angry I had all those years directed at my father then turned to my mother. For her to deny me my father well there just arent words for it. She told me his name is George Walker and was a ranch hand but will not give me any other information. I know people will say there maybe other reason she doesnt want me to know him but I think I should have been able to make that choice not her. Im married, planning a family of my own and will never know what it would have been to have him give me away. Or to even know what a father is suppose to be to his child. Ive never seen a photo, dont know if the eyes I have are his. So to all you dads out there let your children know who you are.