Direct contact with birth mum

[Solomamma]

Hi.

We are hoping to have direct contact with birth mother again in the next few months, due to covid amongst other things the last time we met was 2019. I found it quite awkward last time, how to balance the purpose of contact being between birth parent and child but being there for my little one and engaging with the birth parent, when obviously they're not there to build a relationship with me. I guess I'm looking for tips from anyone with any experience, did you find it awkward, does it get easier over time? What helped break the ice? Perhaps we'll bake a cake. For context little one was removed at birth and had regular contact until 6 months, they're now 5.

Thanks in advance.

We didn't do direct contact, so no direct experience.

Is this at at contact centre or your own home?
I wonder whether now your DC is older it might be better to do the contact somewhere neutral?
We have craft cafe near us. That kind of place might be good as you could do something, eat, and interact?

I went down a rabbit hole of Facebook yesterday and ended up reading posts written by a birth mother who said their child was forcibly adopted and was having a variety of issues with her expectations and experiences of direct contact.

Based on what I read and on my own experiences of direct contact with birth sibling, my advice would be speak to your agency's post adoption contact coordinator so that you and she both have a clear understanding of what will happen during the contact, how long it will last, photos, etc, and what each other's expectations of it are.

The reality is that she does need to build a relationship with you and you with her in order for the child you have in common to feel safe and not pulled in different directions.

Depending on your/her situation it might be worth meeting up the 2 of you either in person or virtually so that you feel comfortable with each other first.

Finally it might also be worth contacting an organisation like adoption U.K. for more specific advice and information so you can talk it over with someone who has been in a similar situation.

Hi, thanks both for your replies.

@UnderTheNameOfSanders it's due to be at a contact centre but we may go for a walk or something if the weather is nice and the session is going well, the adoption support worker has said they'll organise some kind of crafts so it has some structure but the rest we'll play by ear. Hopefully that along with cake will help.

@ifchoclatewerecelery I've spoken to the support worker the set up etc is fine. I told them that last time I felt it was awkward, they advised it often is that way, perhaps I'll speak again to see if I can get some more constructive feedback and I think like you say get them to explore all of our expectations.

It's not so much I'm uncomfortable as I've met birth mum loads of times at handover when little one had direct contact when they were tiny and at final contact, which obviously wasn't final contact in the end, so we did develop a relationship so to speak, but it's difficult as whilst she was able to openly talk about her life and did about some quite intimate things I had to be careful about what I could say, so it was quite one sided in many respects.

Don't get me wrong, I don't know that she doesn't want to build a relationship with me/ us and she doesn't give off that impression, I'm just making the assumption that she doesn't, that during her one direct contact a year with little one that she'd rather focus on them than chat and engage with me. She was probably feeling equally awkward, making her own assumptions and worrying about things that are non issues to me. For example last time little one kept coming back to me and climbing over me, so I ended up sitting up on a chair to try and remove myself and to give them a better chance of engaging, but in hindsight perhaps I should have stayed on the floor and encouraged that engagement between the two of them whilst also giving us both an opportunity to engage. I know I'm over thinking it all, it's just so difficult to judge what's best to do, which is why I came looking for others with experience.

I hadn't thought of adoption UK, so that's certainly something to consider thanks, maybe even my LA can put me in touch with someone.

But also if anyone else reads this who does have experience, please get in touch, would be good to hear your thoughts.

Thanks again both for your replies, certainly things to take away. X

We have sporadic direct contact with the birth mum of our two DCs. I'm happy to answer any questions, but we feel it's absolutely the best for them (they were in FC from birth so have no memory of living with her, but they have also met her).
She has an extremely chaotic lifestyle (not surprisingly) so goes off the radar often (she is off the radar at the moment) but as our two know her as someone they have met a few times and had the odd phone call with, they don't glamorise her. We are not surprised when she isn't in contact and then suddenly is (it's been phone calls since COVID - we could have met up this year or part of last year but it's been about 9 months now since anyone's had contact details for her).
They also have met GPs who fostered their oldest sibling; we've done Zoom with them since COVID.
I would say don't take lack of contact as lack of interest. Also my DCs will chat about her when we aren't with her (we have as I say only had a few meetings) but are very shy when she is there - not surprisingly.

Hi @Cantthinkofannewname. Thanks for your message .

How old are your DC? How long have you been having direct contact and how often is it planned? Was it part of the adoption order or did you have to request it to be set up? Ours is currently once a year and 2x letter box, not sure whether once a year is beneficial or whether with time we should look at increasing? I absolutely agree it's in my DC's best interest to have direct contact so unless at some point they say they don't want it I will absolutely be continuing with it.

We've got direct contact with birth mum coming up in the next month or so, I've had a conversation at length with the AS worker and I'm feeling a little more relaxed about it than what I was. How do you find it? I'm going to take the lead from my DC, be there, take a step back, whatever they need and try not to worry about the rest.

My DC will also speak of birth family, they talk about their siblings a lot, despite never having met them. It's early days for us re contact with siblings, currently letter box but I hope one day we'll be able to have direct contact.

If you've any tips please do share, can DM me if you'd rather.

Thanks x

Our DC are later primary age, we mainly saw birth family (about once a year) when they were preschool/older one was early primary age. Nobody has helped us with this, we just did it once we had the initial meeting with birth mum facilitated by SW. It's not rocket science TBH, we just gave her our phone number (it's a PAYG we keep just for her, we won't ever change it so she can always call it - in fact she has done a couple of times out of the blue to tell us her new number - unlike the possibility of changing our main mobile/house number but on the flip side we don't switch it on that often in case she decides suddenly to call in a midnight panic).

The DCs don't have to speak on the phone or do much when we meet in person, but rather like that eccentric uncle who's a bit odd but we see anyway, until they are old enough to stay home on their own they come with us to see her (it's quite a way so it's usually a side trip to a holiday).

We have had one or two meetings in a contact centre, otherwise it's either at a family restaurant type place (with soft play etc.) with the grandparents, or once or twice in a park. We usually organise through the GPs but once when they weren't speaking to her we did it directly (that was the contact centre one).

(I should say that the younger one started primary just before the pandemic so it wasn't because of age, but because of the pandemic, that we haven't been recently).

Thanks, I think I like AS facilitating it for us, keep the rules in place especially as there's not much distance between us, although your set up does sound nice and far more relaxed. Something to think about for the future perhaps, definitely the way I'd like it to go with siblings.

Thanks again for getting in touch.x