To think the way some birth mothers are treat is appalling

[SpringHasSprung20]

A decade ago when I was still in my teens I had a baby removed from me at birth by social services and put up for adoption against my will.

It wasn't me who was the risk, I was being abused by the father and fought so hard to get away, have him prosecuted and keep my baby. I've posted about my story before.

Fast forward to now I'm approaching 30. I have a family and I'm living on the other side of the country with two subsequent children in my care full time with no SS involvement. I have a good life and haven't spoken to the abusive ex since I left him. I'm a different person. A strong person.

SS never allowed to meet the adoptive parents because I was opposing the adoption.

Do you know what contact I have with my son? One letter per year, due every April but it's usually always months late.

All of my letters are inspected by an adoption social work team before they'll be passed on to the adoptive parents/my son. Protocol. Most years they are sent back to me to edit out parts where I've told him I love him or miss him. I'm not allowed to say that, it's too emotional apparently.

I'm not daft, I know it's not in his best interests for me to be emotional in letters so I never am - but I do want him to know he's loved.

They are pedantic beyond comprehension. One year I had a letter telling me he was doing well in school, in my reply I said I was proud and he's such a clever boy. They sent my letter back and made me change "you are so clever" to "you sound clever"

I've had to plead with the adoption team for years to ask the family if I can have a photo, after 8 years of the adoption team saying "we don't let birth parents have photos" a kind contact coordinator finally agreed to ask the family for me.

The family took a while to decide but agreed I could see a photo. I can't keep it though.

I have to liase with an adoption team in my area and ask that the photo be sent to them so I can go into the office and look at it on a computer screen. Once. That won't happen this year because of covid so I have another year to wait before I can even catch a glimpse of my little boy. I have no idea what he looks like other than the sweet 6 month old face I have in a photo album, taken at our "goodbye contact"

I'm not allowed to send birthday cards or presents because it's a pain for the adoption agency to facilitate.

I have a box here that I save his cards in every year but that's not the point really is it? Imagine being a child and never getting a birthday card from your mum.

I'm not allowed to tell him about his siblings in letters. I talk to them about him all of the time but they must be kept secret.

All of the above is wrapped up as being in his best interests of course, but is it really?

I don't think he'll feel that way later on.

If you were adopted wouldn't you want to know that your 'birth' mother loved you? Would you be happy to only hear from her once a year?

I'm not a criminal and I've never hurt a child or been accused of it. I'm a good person and a good mother. I have the backing of SS here completely, after I approached them when I moved here. The senior manager raised her own concerns about how I was treat by that local authority and couldn't believe the way they work.

AIBU to think the way some birth mothers are treat is appalling? I'm not referring to abusive people or people who neglect their children, but people like me and others who were let down terribly.

I cannot move past the injustice of it all.

@Hepsie

We should not be telling people who are talking about their experience as a child to be quiet.

Absolutely not. And no one has done that here. Another thread to amplify their voices rather than silence the ops voice and increase her distress on her own thread is an appropriate way to do that.

people arnt trying to silence her, being in the same position as the child means we know the other side. OP has had a awful time but what she wants( more contact) might distress the child further

And hence the impasse.

The process should quite rightly be centred around the child. And it should include factual and unbiased reasoning alongside professional opinion. The child should be given all that information at the appropriate time, decided by those who know the child well.

In cases where there is doubt, birth parents should be allowed to have that recorded and investigated impartially. Currently it is incredibly hard to to that.

This also impacts statistical recording of alleged abuse and neglect that will carry on affecting all parties and the way CP is structured.

The category "risk of future emotional harm" is particularly open to manipulation as it is so subjective and cannot be reasonably worked at by parents in the laid out timescales rightly designed to prevent children languishing in care.

On the question of siblings - I have two full siblings. I didn’t find out about them, nor they about me until I was in my thirties - them in their twenties
I don’t think I would have handled it well in my teens if I’m honest - but obviously cannot say for definite.

We all speak regularly - and no one is traumatised. 🙄.

I’m adopted and I’ve no interest in ever finding the woman who gave birth to me. She isn’t, never has been and never will be my mother. Any other kids she’s had are not my siblings.

I hate to break it to you, but she is your biological mother and those are your biological siblings. However wonderful your adoptive family, it doesn't chance biology.

*change

@OhCaptain

In the gentlest way possible, I don’t think they can be held responsible for the problems with keeping him a secret etc. You’re choosing that for your children.

You say he should know that he’s loved by his mum. He has a mum. You’re his biological mother, but he has a mum who loves him every day. So he is loved.

I’m sorry that you miss him but to be brutally honest, you’re only thinking of yourself and your sense of loss. There’s no reason to think he hasn’t got a happy, healthy, full and loving life.

He might seek you out when he’s older.

Not ‘might’ he will indeed, and also this story is very sad because it sounds like OP didn’t get a chance at all. I’ve seen how SS do give chance to help out and yes I’ve heard horror stories but I know for sure they do their best to help people but it sounds like this LA were corrupt and didn’t do anything properly. You have the backing of a SS now I would be going to court as well.

I have commented above Op, how do you feel about doing a memory book? Include pics of him, details of your pregnancy, how much he weighed, time he was born etc. I think If he comes to find you it’d be lovely for him to know these things as he may not know. It’ll show him that you truly loved him & you’ve missed him. Your story will come out but you want to be positive about his life with you

P.s I have never been in this situation or any situation with SS but I do have a friend who was with an abusive man and he was bad the did help a lot. She did have them for some time though and it wasn’t always Great but I do believe they helped her very much.

@ShulamithFirestone

I’m adopted and I’ve no interest in ever finding the woman who gave birth to me. She isn’t, never has been and never will be my mother. Any other kids she’s had are not my siblings.

I hate to break it to you, but she is your biological mother and those are your biological siblings. However wonderful your adoptive family, it doesn't chance biology.

you meant family not adoptive family thats insulting to the people who brought us up and we love

@Hepsie

You think the OP doesn't want to hear from adoptees that have a different view of the needs of adopted children and their relationship with the birth parent? Even those whose birth mother's circumstances were also challenging?

I don't think she needs to hear all the unpleasant comments on this thread which whilst serve to give adopted children a 'voice' do nothing apart from to exacerbate the distress and misery to the person who posted this thread in the first place. But you know, keep going, fuck being nice, keep your voice. All over someone else's thread. Because if they were feeling shit to start with, what matter if they come away feeling a million times worse right? Wouldn't dream of silencing you 🙄

What are you actually on about Hepsie? Honestly, grow up.

What are you actually on about Hepsie? Honestly, grow up.

You may want to consider applying that advice to yourself.

You think it's more traumatic not to know until you're an adult. You don't know what would be more traumatic as you haven't been in that situation. Nobody knows how another person would feel, so people can only share their own opinion / experience. It's your right to do so as well of course.

Ah now you’re wrong about that one. I have been in that situation. Some of these things are not adoption-specific. I have 2 half-siblings who I was suddenly told about at 32 o’clock without preamble as we were tidying away a funeral buffet. We also have two cases of bigamy in the family two generations back so a bit of a pattern

From a personal perspective, I would rather have had the knowledge drip fed earlier than the bombshell it was, even if we couldn’t meet.

From a parenting perspective, I think it’s always best to tell the truth, simplified to the age appropriate level. Always. We have a complicated set up with one of our DC and I feel that very strongly there.

Although DC will often naturally defend their parents choices later. My DD was passionately defending my one big parenting regret not long ago. To them, whatever happened was normal, and they are usually loyal to us whatever we do, but truth in small child-friendly bites is best for minimising trauma.

I don’t get why such ire is being directed at the actual adoptees on this thread - as opposed to those who have questioned the veracity of the OPs story - or said some quite disturbing things about DV.

@Hepsie

What are you actually on about Hepsie? Honestly, grow up.

You may want to consider applying that advice to yourself.

I have spent time providing thoughtful comment to the OP.

@2021namechanger

I don’t get why such ire is being directed at the actual adoptees on this thread - as opposed to those who have questioned the veracity of the OPs story - or said some quite disturbing things about DV.

Exactly.

The voices of adopted people are incredibly relevant. SS and courts don't just make up policies. Policies around contact are informed by research, and feedback from adoptees is highly important. The policy that dictates what contact the OP has wasn't just plucked out of thin air, it is based on factors such as understanding of attachment, child development, risk and what researchers have been told by adoptees. From what the majority of adoptees - and adoptive parents - have said on this thread it sounds as if current policy is along the right lines and increasing it would not have been in their or their child's interests.

I hate to break it to you, but she is your biological mother and those are your biological siblings. However wonderful your adoptive family, it doesn't chance biology.

ShulamithFirestone Incorrect. She isn’t my mother, if she produced again they aren’t my siblings; they aren’t my family.

Blood doesn’t make a family. Time, effort, love, actually raising the child makes them a family.

Whatever the reasons for giving up a child, that child is no longer yours. Whether they choose to accept that is another matter entirely.

I have spent time providing thoughtful comment to the OP.

Indeed thought provoking is one way to describe your interactions. I can think of others.

@Hepsie

I have spent time providing thoughtful comment to the OP.

Indeed thought provoking is one way to describe your interactions. I can think of others.

Okay, Hepsie. Lol.

So sorry to hear of your situation OP, I haven’t read all the thread but thought maybe you can write the letter you really wanted to send along with the ‘censored’ one. Keep them all and Maybe when he’s older he can read them and see how much you loved him

MistressoftheDarkSide, many thanks for your respectful comment. I acknowledge my inability to express myself succinctly, for if I had managed that you may have realised that I did ln fact read all of the OP's posts - except for the ones that she wrote whilst I was writing.
One of my difficulties in expressing myself was that I didn't want the OP to feel like I was insulting her, or even worse, that I was calling her a liar, neither of which were my intentions. However, in trying to explain my self to you, and others who think like you, I might inadvertently now be doing so.
My thoughts were/are that I find it difficult to understand and, or believe the OP's actions, reactions, and the actual facts of her story. Please take into account that probably no-one on mumsnet (including me) knows the OP in real life, so whether I just outrightedly don't believe the OP's story, or I think she is confused, or I think that she was naive and very immature whilst pregnant with her first child (and still is the latter two to a certain extent) it is not meant as a personal insult.

So my comments to the OP are heavily affected by what she says happened to her when she went to the SSs during her first pregnancy, and what has happened to her most recently, with a different department of the SSs, and the fact that for whatever reason, I don't necessarily believe her accounts. Whereas you, probably being a much nicer person, and definitely less cynical than me, do seem to believe her account completely. Therefore saying I can't have read everything the OP said doesn't necessarily hold up does it, if I am not coming from the same starting point as you?
I really am not trying to be nasty to the OP. I do think that she probably believes that everything she said, is how it actually was - the OP comes across to me as a very loving Mum, who wants the best for her children, but for whatever reason, even though she has been told by quite a few (now adult) adopted children, that her wants and needs are not what are best for her first born, she doesn't seem to be able to follow that advice. I think that the OP has just put her fingers in her ears, and gone "la, la, la, la!" when she doesn't like what pp's have said, which is probably because she still has some growing up to do, and maybe needs to acquire a bit more common sense.

@Hepsie

I have spent time providing thoughtful comment to the OP.

Indeed thought provoking is one way to describe your interactions. I can think of others.

Hepsie - again your berating an adoptee who has said nothing nasty towards to OP. Take your ire out in those who’ve been outright nasty rather than simply shared their experiences.

I wonder - do you do this to any groups at all? Or is just adoptees?

@UsedUpUsername

You may have an outdated idea about "mystery and secrecy of the adoption process" in UK. There are no longer sealed files. At age 18, adopted people in UK have the right to seek full access to their SW pre-adoption records and history including their original birth certificate, the identity of the birth parents and any background known about them. With that information the adoptee can then try to track down and contact their birth parents... if they wish

But isn’t 18 a bit late? By then, the adult has spent their childhood wondering about the circumstances of their adoption and why they were given up, and who their BM is. I just don’t understand the reason for such secrecy, even negative things can be put into terms that children can understand.

Since adopters know their child will eventually have access to their BP story, during the selection process they are prepared for how they will explain the circumstances to the child in an age=appropriate way. in this thread, the child knows who his mother is, and they use Letterbox. He has some grasp of his origin.

Sometimes "negative things" in their past can't be put into terms a child can comprehend. Or should be burdened with.

You only have to read what OP says of the child's father, to understand that.

This thread was originally about contact. Birth mums are made out to be villains for not maintaining contact (birth parent couldn’t be bothered/put her feelings aside for sake of child to just write one letter) and now are being made out to be villains for trying to maintain contact.

The fact is most birth parents don’t manage to maintain contact however no one has questioned why- it’s always been they just weren’t able to for MH/addiction/ trauma reasons etc and nothing to do with the services involved- but to be clear contact is not easy. It is not just one letter. The last contact I had it took over a month to get a response to an email. Then I was asked for the same information multiple times. Contact has been lost in the past, social workers change and trying to find out who is almost impossible. 6 weeks it took the last time the social worker left for me to find out who was dealing with it- duty kept saying they would email/phone me and let me know who had been allocated within 2-3 days. 4 years later I have yet to get that phone call/email- the only reason I found out was because I emailed the post adoption social worker and she very kindly found out for me.

The letterbox service is in all honesty not fit for purpose

Ok let’s say there’s been a mix up on the maternity ward you were on. Sorry there’s been a gross injustice - you now need to return your children to their biological parents. Do you think that’s a good idea?

@Countrygirl2021 Don't you? The gross injustice would be the child not being with their bio parents.