Adult adoptee - first contact with birth mother - please help, need advice. LONG

[BlackNoSugar]

This is a bit long but I don't want to drip-feed as we go along.

I was adopted as a baby, apparently my birth mother was a young teen. Over the years I've wondered about her but not had any particular feeling of 'needing' to contact her. Quite a few years ago I applied for and got my original birth certificate so I knew her name.

DD was born with a heart defect, and I've since been diagnosed with a condition that is quite possibly genetic. That made me think a bit more about my birth parents and I did an internet search and joined the Adoption Contact Register, with no results.

A couple of years ago I did another online search and this time found a post on an adoption forum, saying my BM was seeking me. The post was over 10 years old, from a man I assume is a relative or friend of my BM, and all the contact emails were 'dead'. I replied to the post anyway, a neutral "are you still seeking contact", and checked back every so often, not expecting any replies.

Two months ago there was a reply. Apparently my BM was searching, but after years without luck she gave up. The man said now the post had had a reply he would check back occasionally.

I answered that I was the adoptee.

Yesterday I checked, and he replied last week - he has let my BM know that I have replied, he says she is in a bit of shock. She has a temporary email address that he's given me (as it's a public forum). I replied that I would need a couple of days to compose my thoughts, but that I would email her this week.

I have no idea how to start. My draft email has been deleted over and over again because how do you even begin? I think it should be short, no personal details, just sort of 'hello how are you, glad we made the contact", but that somehow seems so impersonal.

I can understand that the possibility of contact must be both exciting and scary. I think you are right to make a cautious start and I wouldn't worry too much about your first contact being impersonal. This isn't someone you know yet so just go with your gut feeling and take it one step at a time

I hope it all works out well for you.

Protect yourself, I speak from experience.
Hope it works out

No experience so I don't feel qualified to advise really, but would just say go very very slowly. Good luck!

Go slowly . Get some RL support

Don't give out any personal identifying information

You could say that you are looking for some information about the circumstances surrounding your birth . You might want to say what you've been told / what you know already

You might want to add ( if it's true)

That you know she was young, you understand it must have been hard for her and you don't judge her / you're not angry at her

You've had a happy childhood , love your family and don't want to intrude upon her life

Or something like that

Hello my love, this sounds similar to my story, but unfortunately my bm had died by the time we would have been able to make contact.
I too would advise caution and if possible an independent intermediary.
There are organisations that will do this free of charge, have you tried the adoption and family finding service from your local council, if they still exist.
They were brilliant with me and were a great support as was dh.
It is an emotional roller coaster and not something you should become involved with without support ime.
I hope it goes well for you and agree if you go it alone to keep the letter formal. It's an awful thing to say but you don't know this person at all and they could be anybody with a whole heap of baggage and problems.
On the other hand she could be well rounded, adjusted with a new life and other children.
I would just keep initial contact brief and tell her how you are, give her contact details and that you want to keep the door open etc.
Then wait and see her reply.

Just follow all the safety rules of online dating :

Don't give your address , where you work etc

Meet in public ( if you decide to meet ) and have someone nearby / on standby

Take everything one step at a time . Don't commit or promise anything

Don't get in over your head

Don't go too fast , it's very emotional . It can bring up a lot of feelings you didn't anticipate

Remember you have the right to stop at any time, for any reason .

Expect the unexpected . She might reject you. You might meet and feel an incredible bond . You might exchange information and that's all . She might be a nutter who intrudes on your life or expects you to become part of her family

Try to find a support person in RL who is not directly involved ( not your parenst or siblings ) . Someone who won't tell you what to do or feel but will just listen

Adoption conuselling would be ideal, if you can access this

I'm setting up a new email address just for this. I definitely won't be giving any personal information, and right now I really don't think I'll be meeting her any time soon, if at all. I live a long way from where I was born so it's unlikely we live near each other anyway.

The local council has an adoption counsellor who only works PT, I will try and contact them tomorrow.

DH knows what is going on and is very supportive, as are the two close friends I've told.

TBH I'm not a hugely emotional person, and I feel no bond with her at all. If she does reject me I will be disappointed but won't feel rejected, if that makes sense; if she wants to be far too clingy I won't have any problem stepping back.

Stacey I will use your comments as a basis for my first e-mail, that is pretty much what I wanted to say, so thank you.

It's sounds like you are clear in your own mind what you want from this contact - that's good . Just be prepared for this to change and it to feel a bit weird

I'm quite a practical person too and when I contacted my biological mother , I just wanted information ( I had none from my adoptive family ) .

She gave me some, then asked to meet, which we did, once . She got the information that she wanted from me , and then I never heard from her again .

It was all a bit surreal . I had no idea what to expect , I felt at a loss without a social script IYSWIM.

She didn't say any of the things that one might imagine a birth mother woudl say . She was very honest , brutally honest . I'm glad I didn't meet her as a vulnerable teenager , looking for love / an identity - I would have been devastated .

But I'm glad that I did meet her, it filled in a lot of gaps. And I'm the kind of person who would rather know the truth , even if it's difficult to deal with .

Hi blacknosugar what an exciting stage to reach! I have been through similar as I searched for my BM when I was 20 years old and found her and met up and then last year searched for my BF found him and met up. Both completely different happenings.

I think you should email your BM sooner rather than later and not worry too much about what you say, brief, warm but fairly factual/limited in what you say. She might be unable to sleep now she knows you're there, unable to function etc and just having that first contact over with might help her move on from the shock.

My first letter to BM was very long and detailed but then I was only 20 and very excited. My first email to BF was more 'mature' but I was really keen to reassure him that I was making contact out of curiosity and wanting to understand my background with NO desire to disrupt his life. Funnily enough he has later said that bit mattered to him less than the bit in my email where I said I'd had a happy adoption and been brought up by loving kind parents. He said he'd cried reading that as he had worried I might have been brought up in awful circumstances. So I would provide that type of reassurance.

Too early to mention meeting up so keep that out of first contact as that will
Unfold naturally.

Just for information I thought about getting professional support on both occasions but decided to go it alone. I knew things might get upsetting and they did here and there but I had friends around me the first time and my husband last time and I felt that was enough. It was enough for me and the upsets I went through were mainly at 3/4am when all I needed was to cry on my own in peace about some of the harder bits. It helped to have my husband there the next day or whenever to talk about it. I say that just in case social services are very pushed resource wise as you may feel your own support network was enough. None of my support network knew anything about adoption issues but they were all listening type people who helped me weigh up options at each stage without special knowledge.
Things crop up like when to tell/how much to tell adoptive family and other issues and the 'right' way is so dependent on you as an individual that I wanted to be free from too much steering. My own way of meeting up with both birth parents would, I'm sure, not be recommended by professionals in terms of speed and intensity but both times they were completely right for me personally.

Good luck, it's a special time in your life so take lots of care or yourself

Well I have set up an e-mail address and have sent her a message. I said that I was happy to finally be in touch, and that I don't blame her for giving me up for adoption. I said I'd had a good upbringing, with lovely parents, and that I'm married and have DD. I briefly explained how I'd found her, and said that I understood she'd have her own life now and that I didn't want to disrupt things for her (but without making it sound like I don't want contact).

It's sort of scary and exciting at the same time.

I really hope it works out for you black and that you get the information you need (and possibly a relationship of sort with your BM if that's what you both want)

Hello blacknosugar I too am an adult adoptee who has had some contact with my BM. If you would like to chat privately let me know

I got a reply from her. She sounds absolutely lovely, she said she was very grateful to my adoptive parents for giving me a good life. She also sent a photo, which was very odd to see because she really looks like me!

I think it will be a case of taking it slowly, contact by e-mail, and slowly finding out more about each other. She seems really nice but time will tell.

That's good news. Her comments sounds measured and appropriate . How are you feeling ?

Well that's a very positive start. I bet you're relieved.
Isn't it lovely that you look alike. I was thrilled to find I was the image of my BM, after a life time of looking like nobody
I hope it continues to go well.

I'm feeling a bit churned up inside TBH, she lives about two hours away so a meeting would be quite possible in the future. I need to tell my adoptive mum and dad now, which could be quite difficult, I'm not sure how they'll take it. I didn't say anything earlier because I didn't want to risk upsetting them if it all came to nothing, now I hope it doesn't look like I've been hiding things from them.

They won't think that. You are entitled to make this decision on your own, don't feel like you should have discussed every step of the process as it happened with your adoptive parents.
If you want them to know tell them now, contact made but no meeting yet is a good time.
Alternatively don't tell them at all. You aren't hurting anyone by keeping this private and that's okay too.
Only you know which option is acceptable to you.
Remember this though, being taken from your birth parents , the adoption and everything that followed was out of your control. Now you have a little control don't feel like you need permission or agreement from anyone as to how you proceed.
Its okay to keep this for yourself. We all have private lives that we don't have to share with anyone, including parents.

What jackie said

I don't agree with jackieO that you won't be hurting anyone if you don't tell them. My adoptive parents would have been really hurt if I hadn't told them about finding my BM then BF.

I do agree that you choose your timing but I couldn't have NOT told my adoptive parents because they have always been so open and caring to give me a home in the first place despite having no responsibility for me at all. They don't hold that over me but I definitely feel they ought to be included in something as major as this. But everyone is different I recognise that.
I felt incredibly stressed prior to telling my adoptive parents, desperately worried I would hurt them. But they were fine - shocked as it was after meeting my BM - but fine. I wish I'd told them before the meeting as I felt it was too late but I made up for that with my BF by telling them within days of finding him. They wanted to meet which I find incredible and can't get my head round.
I do hope it goes ok for you black - it might be such a relief once it's over.

I agree with Minty. As a mother who has adopted, I would hope that my DS wouldn't start and continue such a significant relationship without letting me in at some point - and, whilst I would understand that he has a right not to tell me - I would be so hurt.

I do fully expect him to want to meet his birth mother (and possibly father) at some point. And I would hope that he would let me know that he was going to/or had done so.

I would be devastated if he never told me that he had met them - even if it might be his prerogative. It is part of my history too - not in the same way as his or to the same extent - but my DS's birth mother is a part of my life. I think about her a lot. (In my sillier moments, I think about meeting BM again in years to come and sharing some of the stories about DS growing up.)

If you have a reasonable relationship with your adoptive parents - I would encourage you to tell them at some point that you are in contact with your BM.

Good luck if you meet her and I hope it all works out well.

When I was adopted it was in the era of secrecy and the expectation was that you never did traced parents. My adopted mum understood I might want to do it. My siblings didn't - but they were birth children. They told me it would destroy my adopted father if I did it.
I traced her but told no one. I am still angry about the secrecy.
Do what feels right for you. I wrote a letter and took it slowly

I really hope it works out for you! Good luck!

I had a similar thing a few years ago. I was browsing a missing persons type forum and came across a post by my half sister, looking for me! I replied but never heard anything. The post had been made some years previously so I guess she may have changed her email address since making the post. I've tried FB and a couple of other avenues but drawn a blank. Quite frustrating.

Anyway best of luck!

I went through this.

My birth mother looked for me and eventually (when I was 30) got a letter to my parents through the adoption agency.

I took it very very very slowly. More slowly than I did anything else in my life.

We wrote through the adoption agency (anonymous) for a while then shared real information and emailed for another while. Then met, went back to emailing, met again.

18 years on we have a close relationship. She and her husband met my mum and dad and my in laws. She and her dh are grandparents to my children. There were times I found it hard. but I took it easy and slow through it all and it worked out.

My advice is take it very very slowly. Don't rush into a relationship.

Canyouforgiveher - can you say what it felt like when your parents met your BM for the first time?

My BF is visiting me for the first time soon and will be meeting my adoptive parents, brother and rest of family (though my DH and sons have already been to meet him where he lives).

I am very nervous about this meeting and can't imagine how it will go / what we will talk about and whether I will be able to not cry or get anxious.

I don't want to divert this thread though but I think it's such a rare happening that there might not be any point starting a thread just about this as I can't imagine many people will have gone through it. Maybe I'm wrong, it's hard as I don't know anyone adopted in RL and anyway each adoption situation is so unique.