How/when do I tell my mum?

[TeacupTempest]

This is a tricky one for me. I have always know I was adopted and through most of my life I thought I was pretty unaffected by it. In more recent years it has become obvious that it has been something that has shaped who I am.

My mum went on to have biological children after adopting me and I believe she treated them very differently to me and to some extent I now believe that, certainly as babies, she loved them more/differently to me.

Mum and I have just been through a rough patch which coincided with my wedding, which she pretty much ruined for me. I am trying to get through this but am finding it very difficult to be with her at the moment and whenever I see her I just feel such sadness at the thought of my childhood and also my wedding day. I am also deeply saddened that our relationship is suffering.

Tricky enough already. Here's the extra spanner. I have been trying to trace my birth mother on and off for a while. Things got more official a few months ago and I have just found out that a blood relative has successfully been traced and my social worker will be sending her a first contact letter.

How do I tell my mum. Do I tell her before contact has been made? It may turn out to be a dead end. DH suggested waiting til after contact but I think my mum would be even more hurt by this......

Don't know what to do. Feel a bit sick!

Hope you're getting on OK with this today teacup. She may take some time to get used to the idea and it may be a difficult time for you and in your relationship with her, but I'm sure it will come right.

You have great support there from your DH, enjoy your weekend away!

If possible then I would have though better done on your own and not with DH ?

Well I did it!

It went surprisingly well actually. I got a bit upset but my mum and dad held it together. They were a bit shocked but said they were expecting it really. Some hugs and kind words and reassurance and a few questions and that was that.

I think everyone is feeling a bit shocked but now its just a case of waiting to see what/if anything happens from the contact this week. I guess there may be some more difficult times ahead.

Thanks for all the replies and advice :)

Waiting game now I think....

Well done you for this! I am so pleased for you and your parents that you all handled it so well. Yes I can imagine you will all feel quite shocked this week by how quickly this has moved on.

I hope you get the news you want later in the week - now that you have talked to your parents about it, it will be so much easier to fill them in on any little (or big) developments in a more casual way than at the weekend - you've made the biggest step and it's gone well, so I'm sure later steps will be fine too.

You sound as though you expect contact to be quite soon - was the blood relative your birth mother or a relative of hers who has been asked to pass on information?

HI loves2cycle

I am still relieved at how well it seemed to go. All a bit dazed but better than expected. Yes, the relative is (we think) my birth mum's aunt who she stayed with at the time of my birth. Things might not happen straight away of course but my social worker warned me that with similar cases she has worked with they have suddenly started moving quite quickly form this point so......

I have been advised to start writing a letter about myself without directly mentioning the adoption as that might be too emotive. Was working on that yesterday but it seems so alien. Its like writing a C.V!

I have only read the first few posts so apologies if the thread has moved on. If I don't post now I will forget.

While I can totally understand your adoptive mother being upset at the thought of you searching for your biological mum, it has to be what you want to do and tbh I don't feel your adoptive mum has the right to make you feel bad about it. Maybe if she feels things will change between you, you can use that as the start of a conversation about how you feel she has treated you differently from her biological children even though you know she loves you.

Also, if you didn't feel she felt differently for you, would you still search?

And FWIW biological mums often feel differently about their children even when they are theirs! In other words, don't get too het up about something that might not be there.

I remember doing that sort of a letter - I found it easy to NOT mention the adoption as I learnt about being adopted when I was too small to remember being told IFSWIM so to me being adopted was natural and was rarely thought about by me. Maybe things are different for you because of your siblings, but I can see it's a good idea to avoid it at this unknown stage.

I waffled on about my star sign and personality traits at memory of what I wrote at 20yrs old. I think I went on about how messy I was as a person but how much I loved shopping - she wrote back to say she was also messy but hated shopping with a passion! The to-ing and fro-ing of early letters between us were a sort of 'getting to know each other' process. After the first letters, we sent each other pictures and she later told me she couldn't bear to look at the baby photos I sent her as they made her cry too much.

I cried myself so much during the whole process. I had a fantastic best friend who helped me during this phase, wiped my tears, got drunk with me and was generally brilliant - I hope you're not having too many overwhelming emotions and tears but are having lots of support.

The other thing that helped me cope was to keep my tears/pain away from my mum and dad - I sort of put a brave face on for them so they wouldn't quite see how much the whole thing really meant to me. I just found it easier on our relationship to keep the levels of my emotions about it private from them - I wanted to protect them from any more pain than they had already endured by not being able to have their own children and I thought them seeing me upset would be awful for them.

I have always known so it is also completely natural for me I guess its just odd to write a letter to a stranger but without really mentioning the one big reason why!

My letter sounds very much like yours. A soort of mini bio; I like ice cream and marmite but hate daddy long legs coupled with my educational background and hobbies and so on.

I thinks I will try and take your advice and keep as much of the emotion as I can away from mum and dad. I have a very supportive DH and some great friends so I have people to help me through.

All being well the letter will have been received today

Part of me feels very impatient and part of me wants to bury my head in the sand!

I really hope you get to send your letter and get a good response. Do you have constant butterflies at the moment? I was really agitated when I was going through all this - I must have burnt off millions of calories with my agitation - my mind was really jittery.

If you're going through similar agitation, I hope you can do lots of calming things like walking outside, having baths, candles around the place etc!

Teacup - sorry, I haven't been on MN much this past week - I've just caught up with all of your posts... what a week!!

I hope you get a reply soon - it must be agony waiting.

Just remember - if you don't hear back or she doesn't want contact, it's not a rejection of you, she doesn't know you - she would only be rejecting facing something she did many years ago (giving you up) x

ChippingInMistressSteamMop Thanks you :) Especially for the last sentence. I will try and remember that though it may be hard at the time.

loves2cycle I am veering between agitation and numbness and back again at a rate of knots!! Mind feels a bit like fast jelly! I have a dog who will keep my company on walks. Would love a nice relaxing bath but I live on a boat at the moment and its a 7 minute walk to the showers....not so relaxing!!

AH Whatever happens at least I can say I tried. Its better to regret doing something that regret not doing anything at all (I hope :))

Teacup - will anyone be able to confirm that she is your birth mother - whether she wants contact or not?

7 minute walk to the shower... urgh. I'd hate that - though I'd quite like to live on a boat for a while :) Is it a barge or a sea going boat that's moored?

I am not sure tbh. I am hoping this contact will turn out to be the aunt then I guess she can confirm or deny. We have my birth mum DOB too.

I am on a 30ft yacht that is currently parked in a car park over winter for maintenance, but we should be getting put back in the water and setting sail again soon. :) The walk to the shower is not a highlight!

Oh - I hope you haven't had the winds we've had this winter then - not much fun in a dry dock! Where will you be off to ??

Yes teacup better to have tried than to regret not doing so later in life. And there is a strength in what your doing - it takes strength and I think helps to build you into a stronger person.

Good luck with the next few days, being able to walk with a dog must be relaxing, though a 7 minute walk to a shower is tough - you must be a hardy sort!

I have never thought of myself as the hardy sort.....I like it!

ChippingInMistressSteamMop Oh yes we did indeed have the wind! Setting off in a few weeks. We are part way through sailing around the UK and Ireland.

Wow! For sailing round the UK and Ireland you would need to be hardy definately.

I bet you're hoping you'll have made contact before you set off.

Absolutely. Correspondent by letter will get trickier after the next few weeks. Though we will still have phone and email access so could be worse.