Amber Portwood didn’t take the news of her daughter’s adoption well.
After her and ex Gary Shirley’s 16-year-old daughter Leah Shirley expressed wanting to be adopted by her stepmother Kristina Shirley, the Teen Mom star admitted she had trouble processing the teen’s request.
“I thought I was already dark and deep in a hole from what happened to me from the incident in North Carolina from him [fiancé Gary Wayt,] leaving me,” Amber revealed on Teen Mom: The Next Chapter April 17. “But when I found out about my daughter saying that she wanted to be adopted it took over everything.”
Amber, 34, added, “I was really in bed for over four months. But I just realized that I just truly needed my mommy.”
During a conversation with her mother Tonya Portwood, Amber—who is also mom to James, 6, whom she shares with Andrew Glennon—revealed how much of an impact the news had on her.
“I just woke up and I was, like, hopeless,” she told her mother. “Just feeling like hopeless, and just, why am I awake.”
Amber also reflected on the relationship she had with her own mother at the age of 16, and how at the time, like Leah, she moved in with her father.
“My relationship with my mom when I was around 16 was a little tumultuous,” Amber said in a confessional. “Me and my mom were fighting so bad that I had to leave the house and go live with my father.”
At dinner with Tonya, Amber shared that she doesn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel with her daughter after such a major decision.
Instagram/Gary Shirley
“My life circumstances and the things with Leah,” Amber told Tonya, “I’m scared she’s never going to come around.”
Comforting her daughter, Tonya—who revealed she texted with Leah—encouraged Amber to remain optimistic.
“She’ll come around when she’s ready,” she said. “It’ll be fine. You can’t force her.”
After their conversation, Amber admitted she felt a little better, especially after noticing how much her own relationship with Tonya improved after years of turmoil.
“I love my mom so much,” Amber said in a confessional. “So, this is why I have hope with Leah. It’s going to get better. It’s just going to take me a little while.”
Leah—who lives in Indiana with Gary, Kristina and the couple’s younger daughter Emilee, 9—previously expressed her interest in wanting Kristina to legally adopt her.
"I want to be adopted because Kristina's been there my whole life," the teen said on the March 13 episode of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter. "I just feel like it should be official. And it's more than a piece of paper to me."
Leah feared that her mother would contest the decision or extend the legal proceedings until she is 18, when an adoption from Kristina wouldn’t matter.
"If we say something or do something, she might try to do stuff and make it harder," Leah told her father. "And by then it might take two years. And then at that point, there’s no point in even going through all the trouble for it. So, I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it."
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