Grief and loss of birth father, solo adopter.

[Solomamma]

Solo adopter here. Does anyone have any experience managing the loss of a birth parent (so in our case birth father) where that role is absent in the adoptive family unit? Sadly we don't have any contact arrangements with birth father and know very little about him. My little one has so much love for him and is often heart broken that he's not in their life. Despite the early relationship with birth mum and the primal wound we don't seem to experience the same loss and grief regarding her. Any advice greatly appreciated, I feel helpless.

It depends on so many things. How old is your LO, how old when adopted, so how many years with you, at what age removed from birth mother, what do they know about their birth father and how do they know it?

They might be grieving not having a father now, seeing other children with fathers? If so, it is a question of acknowledging the double loss and providing comfort?

I meant to say, I have been through something similar with my dc and I feel guilt and terrible sadness for them, but I don't think you should feel helpless, your dc will be able to get through this and you have more power to help them than you realise. The fact that your dc is not grieving his bm in the same way might be a reflection of your importance to them.

What I have done is acknowledge the loss often, talked about it and around it, and provide comfort.

I have also looked up the father's role, and its benefits when done right, so that I understood the loss better.

Thanks for responding. My littleone is almost 4 and was removed from BM at birth, they have been with me almost as long. We know very little really about BF, we know name, age, where he lived and a few other basic details, neither of us have met him. Everything we know was in the CPR and we received the Life Story Book about a year ago, which had the same info as in CPR but also included were a couple of pictures.

I have spoken about adoption and Birth Parents from the beginning, how we became a family and why they couldn't live with either BP, in an age appropriate way of course. I guess until we received the life story book they were perhaps grieving the absence of a father within the family unit to some degree but then when we received the book with pictures of BF that transferred to BF and they seemed to fall in love with him. They often speak about him, but sometimes they are heart broken that he is not in their life. I guess helpless was perhaps the wrong word to use as of course I can comfort and help them through and I do, but like you say, I feel guilt and I sometimes feel like the only thing that can resolve their heart ache is a father which I can't (and didn't) give them. You're saying continuing to explain, support and acknowledging the loss will help with the feelings and that all of course makes perfect sense. Maybe I'm making it an unresolvable issue, because of the guilt I feel, I don't know. Anyway I will look up the father's role so I understand better, sorry for waffling and Thanks again.

My LO focuses on we had which died 4 years before she was even born and misses him terribly. At 4, last year, she made a card for him which we put on the shelf by his urn. This year she got very upset when MIL's dog died and so she has a framed photo of that one in her room. Death is very much a topic in our house much to my OH's discomfort.

So it could also be that your LO could be focusing the sense of loss they are feeling in general on to him as well as grieving the actual person.