Follow up from my thread last August about finding my birth sister

[badgerhead]

I don't know if some of you remember my query last August about whether I should try and contact my birth sister who I had found out about after my adoptive parents' death.
After some consideration and listening to the advice given on here & by pm I decided not to contact her direct.
However I have asked my adoption agency for access to my records and I am seeing those this Saturday with an independent social worker who is going to go through them with me.
I am excited but also nervous about what they will reveal. I have already gleaned a lot from records my adoptive parents kept and what I have researched, but would like to know more before I make the possible final step of contacting her.
Once I have read through and assimilated the information in the records I will then decide on how I will go forward. I do want to contact her somehow, but respect that she may not be aware of my existence, therefore will most likely go through an intermediary.
I will let you all know more after the meeting on Saturday if you would like me to.

I would like to hear about it, I wasn't on here for your post back in August. You sound very reflective and that you have realistic expectations, it sounds like you are being cautiously curious, which is good as you need to protect yourself. I wish you all the luck in the world and hope you get out of it what you need and want. Please update us and remember to take care of yourself. My interest in this btw, is that we are going to panel shortly for approval as adopters, and we are trying to learn as much as possible (I hope you don't mind me learning from your experiences). All the very best with everything and I hope it works out for you as you want it too. I'm sorry about your adoptive parents passing.

Good luck on Saturday. It would be nice to hear how you get on. Please don't feel you must do it on Saturday though. It is likely to be an emotional day for you.

Good luck ! Hope it all goes well

Thanks for updating us. I think you have done the right thing for yourself and also for any other innocent parties involved.

I hope the meeting on Saturday is helpful. Even though it’s only a fact finding mission you need to be prepared to feel quite tired and emotional afterwards. Give yourself a quiet day on Sunday and next week and have time to process it all.

Just to warn you, sometimes social work records are written in quite a judgemental or harsh style eg mine says “ how disposed of? “ ( when referring to me as a toddler !!!! ) . Or have things like “ lower class of woman “ or “ that type of man “ etc .

These can be upsetting to read . But you have to remember these are just the opinions of one person who probably had little insight into the complexities of life. They are-just words on a page and don’t tell you everything about who that person was and the reasons they made the choices they did.

How that makes sense .

Thank you everyone for the good wishes, I will indeed update you once I have read, listened and assimilated all the information.

Good luck for tomorrow. Have had similar issues. Remeber to protect yourself. Xx

I hope the information you found was OK and helpful to you.

Thank you for your thoughts everyone. The information I have been given is very useful and helps to fill in some gaps. It looks as though my sister was not informed of my birth as there were concerns that she would not cope with a new sister and the subsequent death of her mother. Whether she was told later or has since found out I do not know.
I know that I do want to contact her, but now unsure whether to go direct or to use an intermediary. Will think about it over the next few days/weeks and decide from there.
Altogether yesterday was a relaxed discussion and I feel a completeness around my early days that was not quite there previously.

I have had contact with my sister.
I messaged her and have heard back. She wasn't aware of me until after our father died, and when she found out thought that she wouldn't ever have contact with me. We are filling in gaps about our families at present and taking it slowly, but hopefully we will be able to meet up at some time.
My brother is supportive of my search and when I spoke to him last night he was pleased to hear that we had made contact.

That's fantastic news ! Well done and all the best for the future 💐