Same hat. My mom had me at 19, and I had two older siblings, one of whom was 5 years older. And then two more, and none of us have the same father.

We were poor, OP. Like, the kind of poor people don't want to admit exists in the US. No family were in the position to help, and those who couldn't were content spending their time sneering down at us.

Lice constantly, moving all the time, switching schools every year, never enough money for food or basic necessities. My three sisters and I shared the same mattress with one ratty blanket between us in a filthy one-bedroom apartment, or some trailer, or wherever we happened to be at any particular point in time. Add that to constant issues with drug abuse and violence from the adults, and you don't have to imagine why we were taken by the state and put into foster care (which honestly wasn't much better - we were all split up because we weren't full siblings).

I did not have a good childhood, OP. Having us was my mother's first mistake, and keeping us was her second. I love her, but growing up that way left me with a lot of trauma that I'm still working through at almost 25 years old.

Doing your best to spare a child that life is not something you should feel guilty for.