🧵 A Mother’s Love Story: Stephanie and the Interference That Changed Everything
Stephanie came into my life as a gift—one I chose with my whole heart. I adopted her as a 5 year old and made a promise, not just legally, but spiritually: to be her protector, her advocate, her mother in every way that mattered.
But from the beginning, that role was made harder by the people who should have stood beside me.
I was in a relationship with Stephanie’s biological father, Manny—a man who was physically and emotionally abusive. I stayed for years, not because I wanted to, but because I had to. In Texas at the time, a child had to be eleven/twelve to express custodial preference. If I left sooner, I risked losing her entirely. So I stayed—for her.
I was in a relationship with an abuser where I still tried my best to show up as a mother and caretaker. I finally broke free, I was pregnant again, desperately ill with hyperemesis, and completely depleted. I returned to my parents’ home on my father’s invitation hoping for safety and stability. My mother refused to acknowledge that I was coming out of an abusive relationship.
That’s when my mother made a devastating choice.
Behind my back—and without my knowledge—she conspired with my abusive ex to send Stephanie to live with him. I had no say, no warning, no power to stop it. The medications I was on to control the nausea had a side effect of drowsiness that hit me like bricks.
And when Stephanie confessed that she felt abandoned……. Again…. By me this time, my mother told her I had sent her away.
That it was my idea.
That I had abandoned her.
When in truth, I was bedridden, medicated, sick, and reeling. I couldn’t have stopped it—and I didn’t even know it had happened until it was already done.
For years, I believed the story my mother told me: that Stephanie chose to go.
That she wanted to leave.
And because I believed her, I carried the unbearable guilt that my daughter had rejected me—that I had somehow failed her so deeply she didn’t want to stay.
It stole the most important thing from me:
My relationship with my daughter.
The one I had sacrificed and suffered for.
The one I had protected, endured abuse to preserve.
And it filled the next fifteen years of my life with unrelenting grief.
I walked with that pain every day.
It swallowed holidays.
It echoed in every parenting decision I made afterward.
It made me question my worth, my goodness, my ability to love and be loved.
And it didn’t just break my heart.
It broke my body.
The emotional toll of losing my child led to a severe case of shingles. I was so stressed, so overwhelmed, and so deeply hurt, I became physically sick. The medications I was on knocked me out. I felt powerless, robbed, and erased.
And the hardest part?
I don’t think my mother would’ve ever told the truth—if Stephanie and I hadn’t uncovered it together this past week. If we hadn’t compared stories. If we hadn’t started piecing together the lie. 15 years later.
Because even now—after admitting what she did—my mother expresses no remorse. She says she “had her reasons.” She still believes she was right. She does not take accountability for this decision, or for the consequences of it. She does not take accountability for stepping OVER me as the actual mother and making decisions she had NO BUSINESS making. Hiding the results afterwards, shows that she knew she was wrong.
Even if she wanted to apologize, nothing can make it right.
Not the years lost.
Not the pain endured.
Not the child I cried for every single night for years.
This wasn’t a misunderstanding.
It was theft.
She stole my motherhood.
She stole my child’s affection
She alienated me from my child.
She drove a wedge between me and my child because she wanted to be in control.
And its impact shaped the course of both our lives.
Now the truth has come into the light. And while it won’t undo what’s been done, it gives me something sacred:
The right to grieve honestly.
The right to be known for what I actually did, and not to be accused by lies.
And the right to speak—for myself, and for my daughter.
And we still do.
