Just found out BM went on to have 5 other kids and had them adopted after me.

[MushroomHunter]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone has had any experience of this situation. I was adopted from birth and I am almost 42. I have recently decided to find out more about BM and the circumstances. She was only 17 when she had me and had no help so I understood her decision. However in searching for her (we are quite the way down the line) my social worker has been able to find out the BM went on to have 5 other children after me & gave them all up, bar one, up for adoption!

It’s been a major shock finding out that I have additional siblings as I was aware that she had had a child after me but decided to keep it. It appears that she went from one difficult relationship to another and we all have different fathers.

My point is that I now feel anger towards her, how could she continue to birth children and then put them up for adoption! One child she kept until it was 8 months. I am a mix of emotions right now so any advice/personal experience would be appreciated.

Wiser people than I will reply.

I would doubt she had children on purpose to put them up for adoption. More likely the hope of being able to finally keep one being stronger than the understanding she wouldn't cope?

I am really sorry, wow, it must be such a shock at 42.

I am an adoptee and it has helped me to compartmentalise, if that is the right word, write down the various things I have strong feelings about and deal with them separately, but all adoptees are so different and have such different experiences, it is difficult to give advice.

It must be really hard to find out that you have siblings or half siblings you were unaware of plus you are finding out new information about your birth mother at the same time. Basically there are a lot of reasons why mothers go on to have baby after baby, knowing they are likely to be removed, each time it could have been for any number of reasons or combinations of reasons, but none of that makes it easier for you right now.

Would you consider contacting your birth mother and find out her story, or would counselling be better for you?

I had more than average contact during childhood and I then was able to find out pretty much everything there was to know in late teens and early twenties, and I think that that has made all this easier for me, no surprises.

I hope that posters come along who can give advice which will help.

My SIL worked for social services and sadly this is quite common. They have a baby and hope the relationship will work, but it doesn't, so they put the baby up for adoption and move on, only for it to happen again.

I could only guess that either she kept having children to fill the void left by the ones lost, or to try to force a partner to stay, or perhaps she didn't have the capability to consider contraception.
It sounds like a desperately sad situation, and must be a huge shock to you. Do you have anyone supporting you with this? My advice would be to focus the anger on the situation rather than the person.
This could turn out to be positive, you could go on to build a good relationship with your siblings if you choose to make contact.

Thanks for your replies so far.

All this information was given to my social worker by my BM. They met up to facilitate a meeting with me and the social worker fact finding, as I was the first born non of this was In my file. BM disclosed the information to the social worker who then contacted me to tell me. Yes, the social worker did say that it was fairly common for the BM to go on to have more and give them up for adoption. I just can’t understand why she had so many and in the 70/80s when she would have been very heavily judged by the small local community.

I just feel sorry for all the children after me that have had to suffer because of her stupid decisions. Also I now need to try and move on from this and come to terms with it. I now have no intention of going on to meet BM but I need to try and process this information and heal.

I'm also an adoptee and when I traced my birth family some of the information was devastating. The intermediary (also a social worker) did help me process it. I would take some time to really come to terms with what you now know and see what help there is available for you.

I subsequently made contact with my (birth) siblings and am very grateful that we are in touch.

Yes @imnotacelebritygetmeoutofhere my DH is amazing and is very supportive. Now that’s it’s sinking in a little I can see what others mean when they say BM has been trying to possibly create a family and security but it’s just so far from my own moral compass that I can’t fathom her actions.

@vjg13 thanks for sharing, yes the details are messy and I was prepared for a few shocks but not to that extent. I would love to trace my siblings but I wouldn’t want to cause them any upset. Did you have to meet your birth mother in order to go forward and meet your siblings?

@MushroomHunter this must be so difficult for you. I'm so sorry to hear it.
I work with high risk women who have substance misuse issues, mental illnesses and have been victims of DV. They have also had at least 1 child removed from their care. It is actually quite common, sadly. Many of the people I've worked with over the years have had several children, by different men and either given them up for adoption or had them removed from their care. Each time they hope it will be different and it will work out but sadly it rarely does.

@MushroomHunter I wasn't able to meet my birth mother as she had died many years earlier whilst I was under 18. The intermediary was able to help me find my siblings and another relative and made contact with them initially.

Does your BM have contact with your siblings?

@MushroomHunter

this is such a shock for you, you need to take some time to process it. Feeling angry at this point is very understandable. My son's birth mum has just had another baby, which was removed straightaway, and yes I was angry when I first heard.
But when you have has time to let it sink in, maybe try and take a step back.
Yes, sadly there are some women who have multiple children who they lose to the care system or adoption. The reasons are always very complex. @tillytoodles1 presents it in a simplistic way.
No I don't understand what has gone on in my son's BM head, she would have known the baby would be removed straight away. I do know she comes from a very difficult background, her mum was in care and lost babies to adoption, she was in care and can barely look after herself.
At this point you really don't know what the full story is. Maybe she hung on with that child for as long as she could, maybe she was homeless or with no family support. Maybe she thought that adoption would give you all a better life than she could. She may also have had little or no choice in getting pregnant in the first place.
Try not to judge her, I don't believe that any woman makes an active choice to have 6 children to 'give them away'.
My son's birth mum has now lost 4 children. She is young enough to have more. Over the years I have thought many things about her, but ultimately I just feel sorry for her, for the harshness of her own life and the that she doesn't get to see her babies grow up.

@MushroomHunter my mum was also adopted at birth. She knew nothing of her birth family other than a name. My mum was born 1960 and when she made enquiries about her birth family she was sadly told that there had been a fire at the place where her records were kept and information had been lost. Fast forward to 2006 and my mums sister used a private investigator to track down the family. My mum was one of five who had been put up for adoption. It basically came down to her being the mistress of a married man who wasn't prepared to step up. My mum seems totally at peace with everything now and we've recently used ancestry which has proved quite interesting.

@supersonicginandtonic yes that seems to be the case here too, unfortunately it just came as suck a shock. On reflection I think I was very naive about the whole situation.

@vjg13 so sorry to hear that but I am so happy for you that you’ve got to meet and have a relationship with your siblings. I would like to
Meet my siblings but I’d be worried that in order to do so I’d have to meet my BM. Also the you get is only 19 and I think me just appearing out of no where could be very difficult for them all. I don’t thinking BM has contact with any of them after they turned 18.

@Ted27 thanks for sharing & I hope that your child’s situation works out for them too. I don’t judge her, well I am really trying not too even though it sounds that way. I think now that the shock is wearing off I am staring to see a bit more rationally & I do feel empathy towards her.

@Worcs04 thanks for sharing, I am sure that was difficult for your mum. Yes, I have a family friend with a similar situation to your mums and I am in Ireland so many here are from mother and baby homes. I really should have been more prepared for different outcomes.

@MushroomHunter

whether or not you contact and form any relationships with your siblings has nothing to do with your birth mother, not does it mean you have to meet her

She has no legal rights, and in any case you are all adults.
Do you have any idea if the other siblings know about you or each other?
Use an intermediary service amd take things slowly. Good luck with whatever you decide to do

How are things now?

In case it is helpful I have a lot of siblings (1of 8!) and we all see and handle our family background completely differently. It will be different for you as they will all be new relationships but you might ultimately end up with the same thing, it is a really individual thing even between siblings, because of different life experiences.

I agreed with ted27 in relation to what she has said about women losing children, because of upbringing/unresolved trauma/intergenerational trauma, and I think that society has a responsibility here, better education and other help, but in relation to you trying to not feel judgemental, I personally don't think that adoptees should feel pressurised to feel one way or the other about their own particular situation at any one time. It takes time to work through feelings especially when there has been a shock. I am not sure you should try to understand objectively or not to feel judgemental at this stage, because unless you acknowledge and process how you really do feel first, unbounded, whether it seems reasonable or not, I think it is more difficult to move forward. If you focus on resolving your own feelings first it would hopefully mean that if and when you meet and think about relationships you are absolutely sure of what you want and feel, meaning things start on a sustainable footing. This might be tosh, of course, it is just what I have experienced.

As a teacher I met a woman ‘allowed’ to keep her 6th child after losing all the others.
I think she’d had more hoping for this outcome and I was conflicted by that (obviously not expressed to anyone). I could see how after losing one the system was so set against her. Her first she was very very young, in DV and all sorts of mess. The subsequent ones though some felt automatic. Obviously she wasn’t ideal, but there was a new initiative locally. She kept the 6th. I met him in year 2 and she was ok. Not perfect, but also with our deprived cohort far from the worst. There seemed to be an element of circumstances in her story that had collided, judgements made, when others kept children. It was had. I didn’t know the answers, but I found it possible to understand her also. She wasn’t bad, the worst mother. The system had failed all involved. I’m not saying she could have kept and made it work with the others, or that it was wrong, but I can accept how doomed it was. Was very very tricky, but I was able to be happy for her and her son whole heartedly.

I don’t know any answers or hope to guide you, just maybe it helps build up a possible picture.

@Ted27 thanks for sharing & I hope that your child’s situation works out for them too. I don’t judge her, well I am really trying not too even though it sounds that way. I think now that the shock is wearing off I am staring to see a bit more rationally & I do feel empathy towards her

I think there’s room for a whole range of feelings with this. Judgement might well be part of that along with anger, confusion, sadness, empathy etc etc. The reasons birth mums continue to have children is varied and complex - there’s even now so little support for parents whose children have been removed, therapeutic support that would help them process grief and anger, help them work through patterns of behaviour or relationship that led to removal in the first place. It’s so rarely about a conscious choice to keep populating the care system.

Hi mushroom hunter. My circumstances are very similar. I'm the third child out of 4 my BM had
Child 1 she had when she was 16. This child stayed with paternal grandparents
Child 2 when she was 17, adopted straight from hospital after birth
Child 3 was me, when she was 23. Lived with BM for 2 months, then maternal grandmother for 8 months before she put me into care and I was adopted
Child 4 when she was in her 30's which she kept!
No one in my BMs family apart from my aunt knows about me or my 2 older siblings, not even my youngest sister.
I met my BM twice a couple of years ago now. She is a very complicated person with what seems to be like a lot of MH issues. Certainly not someone I could discuss my or my siblings adoption with so will never know the reasons behind why she gave up 3 children.
However from speaking with my aunt, who has traced their family tree there are lots of issues going back generations including abandonment of children, suicide, adoption etc. so my BM would not have had a normal upbringing with right foundations to enable her to build attachments, develop proper relationships etc.
I have met my eldest half sister, on one occasion. we have nothing in common unfortunately and she has no wish to have anything to do with our birth mum.
I have found my youngest half sister on social media. As she has no awareness of her 3 older siblings I haven't at this stage felt comfortable approaching her. Strange sense of loyalty to my BM as that must have been so hard mentally to keep the 3 of us a secret.

The social worker will have broken the law by giving you that information, and you have no evidence that it's true.

She may well have given birth on an annual basis after you, perhaps in a bid to fill the hole, perhaps for other reasons.

I would imagine that she had no choice in the matter with regard to the others.

I would imagine that if she is still alive she thinks about you everyday.