Final contact

[gotasweaton]

Hi, I just need to vent to others who will appreciate if that's ok? We had final contact/goodbye on Wednesday with BM of our EP baby.....it was straight after the usual contact but on the side of the bloody road as we met up to take LO home! It was so upsetting and BM, OH and myself were in floods of tears. OH and myself feel sick with sadness for BM and wish we could have taken her home so we could look after her - silly I know, as she would think us a couple of weirdos for thinking that! This wasn't the goodbye we were hoping for as we wanted to say so much to BM and we assumed there would be a meeting inside or something. Maybe BM just wanted to hand LO back and go home (she has trouble processing information and this may have been her way of dealing with this)? OH and me are so pissed off and upset that LO SW did not turn up (contact managed by SW Assistant, who has been great) and not been in touch since, is this all usual? Would BM have been asked how she wanted to do this? What support will BM receive now? I can't bear the thought of her going through this alone. Growing up she never stood a bloody chance - it's so unfair. We love LO so much, but we never even got the chance to find out how her first name came about. It was all so horrible and upsetting although worse for BM. Sorry for the rambling but I don't feel others would understand. Thank you

That sounds horrific. One note, it doesn’t have to be final if you don’t want it to be. Open adoption is so much more common these days and in NI, certainly, is now the norm. Face to face contact can work really well if both sides are willing.

Oh goodness I am sorry you went through something so traumatic. Poor BM must be in bits.

As @Wannakisstheteacher said direct contact is a possibility if it’s something you would like to consider. Our son has direct contact every year with his BM and it has been great. She loves him very much but like your baby’s BM she just wasn’t equipped to parent him, we are so happy she can continue to be part of his life.

Thank you both- that was something we have thought of but weren't sure if possible. We will give serious consideration to discussing with SW x

That sound awful, but may have been as much as BM could manage. It sounds like BM had time with the baby in their usual contact though so had a substantive final contact? By that point I imagine she just wanted to get the goodbye over with.

Final contact isn’t the time to ask questions about things like how the baby’s name was chosen. It’s for BM to say goodbye to her child, to start the grieving process and to metaphorically end her parenting relationship. None of that lends itself to meeting the adoptive parents and answering their questions. If that’s something you’d like to do your SW can explore the possibility of you meeting Birth Mum separately at a time when she can come prepare for that - which IME is a challenging meeting for all concerned and may not be something she wants/is able to cope with.

Did your SW/SWA explain how the final contact would happen, it’s purpose and the limits of the process, it sounds like you thought it would be something it wasn’t.

My LO's birth parents decided to have their final contact early after much discussion with SS. It was too painful for them to keep going to a contact centre. The contact happened several months before we were formally matched to our LO and we had a one off meeting during introductions with birth parents.

I agree with what @Jellycatspyjamas has written. There is nothing to stop you exploring a separate meeting with birth mum at a later date.

With regards to future direct contact, this too does not have to be decided on now. It is definitely something you can discuss as part of your contact agreement. If the SW decided it's not appropriate to include it at this stage, it is something you can consider again at a later stage once the adoption order has been granted and you've had time to see how the agreed arrangements work.

OH and me are so pissed off and upset that LO SW did not turn up (contact managed by SW Assistant, who has been great) and not been in touch since, is this all usual?

Just to reply to this, if contact has previously been supported by a SW Assistant I’d expect those arrangements to be kept for final contact unless there was a reason not to. It means the contact arrangements are consistent throughout and doesn’t heighten things by bringing in the SW. I wouldn’t necessarily expect the SW to be in touch unless something happened that needed their support or involvement. If you do need support or need to check anything out get in touch, but the SW will assume all is ok unless you say otherwise.

I am an adoptee and from a different era as well. I had some contact with a birth parent as an adult.

There is so much to process here, from this last experience. Can you get RL talking support for that in addition to here? In terms of any next steps - meeting the bm again, arrangements for a more open adoption - the only thing I'd say is if you can wait until you're feeling a bit less emotional than you are now to make any decisions on what that might look like I think that would be very beneficial.

Taking the BM meeting first, you'll have a better idea of what you want out of a meeting after a period of reflection.

On ongoing contact, there is a huge temptation IME, especially when emotions are fraught, to commit to too much too soon and to overcommit generally. Think baby steps here.

It sounds as though it was handled really badly, OP

I am an adoptee and fwiw I had a lot of face to face contact with bio mother during my childhood, and I think it has been very beneficial to me through my adult life. As far as I know research supports giving consideration to face to face contact and its benefits (provided it is managed properly) in every situation -it won't suit every situation but it should get proper consideration - but this has not filtered down to social work practice, or training or preparation for adopters or professional support - the individual social worker will have their own approach and most of the time adopters who want to arrange contact have to look into it themselves from what I can gather.