Piece in Guardian family and now terrified

[sadbirthmother]

I have no other outlet to express my fear, because no one in this world knows my secret other than my mother who sadly passed away last year.

In 1996, I fell pregnant. I was 17 and at the time it felt like I had thrown my entire life away on a silly, one-night stand. The hardest thing was facing the wrath of my mother. Once we had got over the initial tears and tantrums, she supported me throughout the pregnancy and kept the secret hidden from my family and friends. Why? Because in my culture it is strictly forbidden to have sex before marriage. It would've been a huge scandal and I remember not leaving the house for 3 months for fear of my pregnancy bump being noticed. Abortion was not an option, despite my mum pleading for me to get rid, and I decided to have the baby and give it up for adoption. My GP was fantastic and arranged for me to have the baby in a remote hospital and arranged a social worker. She too, was brilliant and said that very few babies from ethnic backgrounds were available for adoption and I would make someone's life very happy. She made me feel like i was doing a precious thing...

Anyway, since then at the age of 20 I had an arranged marriage. My mother said it was for the best and in some ways I was trying to redeem myself for what had happened, by agreeing to my mother's desire of settling down and starting a family. Looking back now, I would've done things differently, but I suppose I have to face the situation that I'm in now.

I've been married for 13 years and I've never shared this secret. I read the article in the Guardian yesterday and it triggered a lot of emotions and memories that I can no longer share with my mother.

It is so easy these days for adopted children to trace their birth parents. The thing is for me, I NEVER, EVER want to be found. It would completely destroy my family.

I don't know what to do. Have i reached a point now where I need to tell DH everything? I fear that his reaction would be to throw me out, because the revelation would bring shame on his family.

Would the local authority have kept my file and can i trace my social worker so that I can contact her and talk about these fears. I'm wondering if there is a way I could leave a letter to explain why I don't want to be found. Or, should I accept this reality and face up to the fact that, one day, I could be traced and contacted.

I'd greatly appreciate your advice and support. Thank you.

I didn't want this to go unanswered, and I'm sure someone much more knowledgable will come along soon, I'm sure you could arrange a letter to go on the adoption file so that you could explain your situation. I have little knowledge of how it must feel for you, but I wish you well and think you sound like a lovely person who made a brave choice.

Hi there,

I am so sorry for your situation and can only imagine how difficult this could be. With regards to social services, they will have completed reports prior to adoption. All this will be held and shared with the child if he/she approaches the agency. It is important that you trace the agency and discuss your concerns/fears with them. For a lot of children who trace birth parents, they are keen to find out about family history, illness etcetera and it is good if Social Work can provide this information - some children at this stage feel they have enough info and stop looking. With regards to your birth child - they may be provided with enough info and choose not to search further. I think if you could provide a letter to your birth child to be included in the file (with as much detail as possible) this would be most helpful to them if they do in the future choose to search.

I hope this info is helpful.

x

I'll give you my experience as an adopted person...

I was adopted in 1980 as a very small baby, and (through snooping) found a copy of my original birth certificate when I was 16 or thereabouts.

I then went through an adoption counselling service at 18 and received my adoption file, giving me details of which school my birth mother had attended, and her family details (siblings etc).

At 22 I logged onto Friends Reunited and found her brother via the school name - emailed him (my file had said he knew about me), and he put me in touch with her.

Had my file had any indication that she wouldn't have wanted to hear from me then I wouldn't have approached it at all.

Most adopted kids have rejection issues on some level, and I doubt they would go open eyes into a situation where they would get hurt.

I am an adoptive mum and I have an awful lot of information about my adoptive child's birth parents. If I were careless about such paperwork my adopted child could definitely use it to trace birth relatives in future so I think it's really important that your social worker tells your daughter's adoptive family about your wishes here. As others have said, any files held by the adoption agency which handled your case should clearly state that you do not want any future contact. However, for the sake of your daughter, I really think that a thoughtful, non-identifying letter from you, explaining your circumstances could be a real gift to her and would perhaps spare her some of the pain of not knowing anything about her roots.

Oh. My. Sweet. Lord. Jesus.

Just walked into the living room to discover DD (age 10, adopted) reading this article. - so I asked her to stop reading it...

Now I have not a bloody clue even what to say to her...

Sorry - I also realise that this is a total thread hijack, but I remembered this thread and couldn't think how else to respond...I can start a new thread if more appropriate....sorry...

MissPolly - I would say be open to answering any of her questions (without revealing identifying details!). 10 is obviously too young to be thinking about making contact but it's normal for her to be interested in anything to do with adoption - I certainly was.

My parents (Mum in particular) would always say openly that she didn't believe that it should be possible for adopted children to make contact with birth parents, but it didn't stop me snooping and doing so.

How open are you with her about her adoption - has she asked questions before?

Thanks for responding norky. We are very open with her, but she has a degree of RAD and can be very controlling. I could see just by the look in her eye that this was - for her - flying in the face of all her grown-ups saying to her 'You'll have to wait' (which we always have - never 'no', just 'wait'). An article that explicitly says you can find birth family within two minutes on Facebook does nothing for those of us parents who are trying to hold these kids steady until they are old enough and ready enough to make whatever investigations they need to later on in life. We are finding the task of parenting her quite tricky at the moment and always try to understand her challenging behaviour in an attachment context - an article like this (and my stupidity at leaving it out so that she could easily find it) could make things much more tricky for a while. MPD

Stay calm. Use it as a chance to talk about her reaction to the article. If she feels she can say anything to you and you'll take her seriously she's less likely to go behind your back. Poor you, though - it's a tough time for you!

Dear fellow Mumsnetters,
Thank you for all your sound advice. It has been reassuring and heartening to hear that I'm not alone. I will contact the local authority social services and will explain my situation. I have started to draft a letter and hope and pray, that she will someday understand why I cannot make or sustain any contact with her. Yes, it is a sad situation, but people in the Asian community are very judgemental here. my DH and his family would blame me for bringing 'shame' on their family name. It's awful I know, and part of me feels the need to detach myself away from this life and start a new, fresh different life where there are no secrets and to face to the truth...

Misspollydooly - i hope you were able to to have the open discussion with your daugter and put her at ease with any questions she may have had about the thread. It would be good to know how you got on.

What a sad situation for you sadbirthmother. I think if you were to contact social services about your concerns then they would put this into your file. It must be very difficult for you. Hope that you are able to find a way around this.