Meeting BPs

[AncientEmo]

Next week we're meeting our DS birth parents. I'm a little nervous and weirdly excited.

Just want to chat about it with people who understand it - did you do it, and what was it like? I'm expecting it to be very emotional.

Because of covid it's been delayed so we have already had one letterbox exchange with them and I feel like I know them a bit. I don't know what to expect though!

We unfortunately didn't do it, we wanted to and it was planned but after they cancelled on coming twice ( as we were about to set off) and just didn't show up the other time with no explanation we gave up. They had prepared some questions with the help of the social worker so Sw emailed us them, we answered those for them and left it at that.

We met BM. I weirdly enjoyed it. Up until the hour before going in I wasn't convinced I would do it. I was nervous and scared.

I genuinely believed it's helped us to have better future communication through letterbox. I can also tell our LO more about their mum which a letter and profile doesn't give you insight into.

Our LO had been with us 5 months when we met his BP and it was very awkward to begin with. She was incredibly nervous, as were we, so it ended up being us telling her how he is getting on with bits about her telling us about his past. We were told to have questions prepared for her but I wasnt comfortable with them. Things like 'what was his first word' just seemed inappropriate when he had little speech when he arrived in foster care. I didn't want to make her feel worse than she already did. So we stuck to general chit chat and we made sure she knew we weren't disrespecting her in any way and that she will always be a feature of his life. In the end it wasn't as bad as we thought.

I was extremely nervous before meeting LO's birth mum but I am so glad we did it. We had read a lot of awful things about her on paper so it was good to see a nicer more human side when we met in person. She asked lots of questions about LO was doing and we asked a few. When it was over I felt relieved, but also sad for the birth mum, but glad that we can tell LO we met her as he grows up, and that we have a real person in mind when doing letterbox contact. A real mixed bag of emotions but definitely worth it.

Good luck. I wish we'd met BM in particular. It didn't happen (yet) for us, but I think it's a good thing to do.

We met our sons BM and eldest sister, I think normal to fill nervous and excited. We asked some simple questions like why/ who picked his name, how much did he weigh, what was he like as a baby . The mum was obviously very nervous as she has been drinking before although not drunk. my son's sister asked most of the questions and there dialogue between them was really for the sister to feel settled about us and happy, the mum wasn't as engaging. mum did cry and we had a hug and at the end we have a photo of us which I'm glad and proud of , it's ready for when my child is older to look at. Good Luck, remember they will be just as nervous, apprehensive etc but it's quite a cathartic experience.

I would agree with them being nervous. I was worried about doing it because I thought she'd hate us. But as soon as she turned up it was clear she was really nervous. From that moment all I wanted to do was give her a big hug.

I met my DD’s BM pre intros. I was incredibly nervous and anxious about it but it was a really useful and helpful experience to go through. It helped to make the person i’d read about on paper ‘real’

In all honesty I think I was expecting her to be angry at me because she understandably hadn’t wanted the adoption to go ahead, but the reality couldn’t have been more different. She was clearly vulnerable, but talked very articulately about what she wanted for DD.

It was hard going emotionally for both of us I think, but i also think it’s helped with maintaining regular ish letterbox. She asked me some questions and I got some info from her on her hopes for DD, her reasons for choosing DD’s names, her wishes for the future.

Some practical advice for the meeting which was given to me by my SW (which may or may not be helpful depending on the circs/ risks in your case):

Don’t sign in with your full or real name
Arrive by taxi or get a lift to the contact centre
Don’t disclose where you live in the meeting
Write down your thoughts and feelings after the meeting. I wrote a letter to my daughter afterwards (to keep not send) and as she’s got older we’ve looked at the letter together and it’s been helpful when doing life story stuff. DD knows I met BM and I think this has been helpful for her in understanding that in her case BM loved her but couldn’t look after her and I’ve framed it with DD that by asking to meet with me her BM wanted to know that she would be safe and loved with me.

Good luck with it

I remember my overriding feeling coming away from the meeting was that I wished I could have adopted BM too. She’d had a rough time with no support.

If it makes sense, that feeling of empathy for what BM had gone through has helped enormously when dealing with the impact on DD of some of the decisions BM made which have had lasting and lifelong effects on DD.