Meeting the adopters. What should I be asking?

[darkriver198868]

Today I picked up the phone and finally asked to meet the adopters. The ball has been left in my court but, due to the nature of my mental health I haven't felt ready. The girls were placed with the adopters about 10 weeks ago.

I have no animosity to the adopters as I wanted my children to be adopted.

I know I am not allowed to ask personal questions and dont intend to as I want to respect the process.

I asked about hobbies. How my son was doing whether he was settled. They asked questions too. I asked about if xmas was sorted, whether they would have a real tree. Football team.

We had a photo taken for my son of all 3 of us together: there we’re lots of tears. My sons Mum burst into tears when she met me. It was the singular thing that put my mind to rest that my birth son was loved and looked after, and gave me the closure I needed as to not contest the adoption Order:

I took a list with me to refer to.

Sending you courage and strength.

Thank you @ourmiracle1106

I'm also interested on what are the possible questions to be asked to the adopters. I hope someone could give some idea and suggestions.

Our LOs birth mum asked us if we intended to change names which we did not, she was able to tell us why she had picked their names which was lovely as we can share that with our children. She asked about our family in terms of would they have grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc. During the conversation she told us about their births and early life which we have written down to share with the children when they are ready.

Our LOs birth mum also answered some questions for us, such as what would she want them to know about her and what hopes she had for their future.

It was a very emotional meeting for everyone but I'm very grateful we had the opportunity to meet her, we are able to tell our children hand on heart that their birth mum loved them very much. I have nothing but respect for her feeling able to meet us.

One thing I would say is try to have some support for yourself after the meeting. Take care.

I think your children are a little older? Maybe ask if they are at nursery or school yet and how they are doing, have they made any friends yet or continued any interests yet.

Its very difficult without getting into specifics isn't it? It will be very emotional for everyone so can you take a friend with you to wait outside and be with you on your way home?

Its a painful and emotional thing to do, but I hope you can take some comfort in being able to put a face to the adopters

It's great you feel a me to do this. It will mean a lot to you all

Do have support for you.

@italiangreyhound. I have struggled the last few weeks with wether I should. However, I know I would regret it.

Pressed send to soon would regret it if I didn't .

Our son's birth parents have not felt able to. But hopefully one day they will.

I hope the meeting goes well for you.

You didn't ask this, so may have been advised already, but the adopters may have questions for you such as:

• why did you choose their names
• did you have any particular interests or hobbies as a child
• is there anything you would really like for your child to experience

You can’t ask personal identifying questions but you can usually ask more general ones like

Do you girls have other siblings ?
Do they live in the town or country ?
What kind of hobbie or activities do they like to do ?

eg - Obviously they won’t say “ Oh they are going to Miss Margaret’s ballet school in Croydon “. But they might say they are doing dancing classes, which might make you happy if you did that as a child, or someone else in your family did .

I give this example because an adoptive family I know sent their Dd to dance classes because they knew her bio mum was a very keen dancer and they thought the child might enjoy it . Which she did, she took classes/ exams for years and loved it.

They would never have known that if it wasn’t for the meeting. And the adopters were not into dance at all so the probably wouldn’t have thought of that for the child.

Hope that makes sense.

Social workers don’t write many positive things about BF members on their reports. I guess they are so focussed on the negative things that happened that meant they were unable to care for their child/Ren. However adoptive parents know that’s just a snap shot of someone’s life at a particularly bad time and you are your life story and much broader and richer than what’s down on these horrible forms.

So any positive information you can give about yourself and your life will be very important to them and your girls . What do you like / used to like when you were well / more stable ? Animals, cooking, watching soaps , walking in the park .

Most adopters really REALLY want to be able to give this kind of details about BF to their children. Because they know that 90% are good people who had really shit things happen to them and maybe didn’t get the support they needed at the right time to deal with them. And yes they probably made some poor decisions along the way but there but for the grace of God go all of us.

So please don’t think that the adopters are judging you, in all likelihood they are not. They probably want to get to know more about you so they can understand more and do the best job they can of bringing up the girls.

I know that’s more about what you can tell them than what to ask. But it’s a two way thing .

I hope you get a meeting soon and it goes well. If you want to , please come back and tell us how it was.

Excellent post Kr1stina.