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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

I don't know what I want from her but SOMETHING would be a start......

20 replies

TeacupTempest · 07/07/2011 17:01

Posted a while back about searching for my birth mum. To cut a very long story short they found her two weeks ago.

Apparently she was very concerned about me being able to contact her as no one except her husband knows about me.

The social worker told me to write a letter and said she would get back in touch with me after she had spoken to birth mum again.

Nothing................

I am flitting between numbness, anger and such sadness. I didn't think it all still had the power to hurt me. After all she had already rejected me in a sense so what was left to hurt?

I don't even know what I want from her. Not at all expecting a fairytale and the thought of actually meeting her scares the living daylights out of me.

But just some recognition. Some concern. Some emotion apart from fear for herself. That would have been nice. That would have been something.

It feels like its all in her court. All the decisions and next moves are hers. I have no control.

Sorry about this post. I know no one can sort this for me. I think I just needed to vent before I started crying uselessly again.

OP posts:

holyShmoley · 07/07/2011 17:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

TeacupTempest · 07/07/2011 17:20

Thanks holyShmoley, tea as it comes would be grand

OP posts:

holyShmoley · 07/07/2011 17:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

TeacupTempest · 07/07/2011 17:26

Thanks. I think they expected to hear from her at the beginning of the week.

OP posts:

EggInABap · 07/07/2011 18:02

Hi Teacup. I have absolutely no idea how you are feeling but it must be devastating. The reason I felt the need to respond is that I accidentally found out that I am not in fact my mothers first born after all and she had given a baby boy up for adoption a few years before I was born. She has never told me herself and I know she would never be honest with (we have no relationship really and she is so far removed from truth and reality it's untrue).

I have no details about him, don't know how much older than me he is or what happened. I often think of him and wonder. I wonder if he has ever tried to contact my mother. I know she would ignore and never acknowledge him, she is a selfish cold woman. I wish I could get a message to him- if I could it would be that he really didn't miss out by not being in her life, if anything he got a lucky escape. My heart aches for a man who like yourself, is sitting somewhere devastated that his birth mother has once again rejected him. I really do hope that he had a fantastic childhood and his real parents are there to support him through this. I hate to think if him grieving over a woman like my mother.

OP do you have a supportive family around you now? There's a chance that your birth mother is just trying to collect her thoughts before contacting you, she may feel immense guilt. Or she could be like my mother, who doesn't give a shit about anyone but herself. I have no idea what advice to give you or even if this has helped. None of this is your fault, it sucks.

holyShmoley · 07/07/2011 18:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TheOriginalFAB · 07/07/2011 18:05

I can understand a bit as my mother abandoned me and since then it has all been about how it has affected her life. I hope you get what you need and want.

Fluter · 07/07/2011 21:09

OP, I'm adopted, and although I've never wanted to contact my birth mother, I've often thought about her.

I just also wanted to say that you must not feel as though she rejected you - I don't know how old you are, but she may not have had much choice about giving you up - the social pressures to do it even only 30 years ago were phenomenally strong.

You've been thinking about this for a long time, and I know she's realised all your life this could happen, it's still a long way between 'it might' and 'it has' happened. She's only had 2 weeks to adjust to the idea, and if she was pressured to give you up, she's probably buried all this, as a coping mechanism, for years. Give her time.

She probably is worried that you're going to turn her life upside down all over again, and there is also the fear of the unknown - just because you share genes doesn't mean that she's suddenly going to become your mother again, or be the mother you have in your mind. You are strangers to each other and whilst you might go onto have a fantastic friendship, you may not. As someone further up put it, you must not base your self-worth on her and what you will find.

Yes, it is all in her court - but you can't force the relationship. Give her space to get used to the idea?

Did the social workers not talk to you about all this before they went off to find her?

Good luck xx.

Labradorlover · 07/07/2011 23:30

My birth mother took some time to respond to social worker's letter. She was scared that I was just getting in touch to vent my anger at her.

I wasn't, I was just curious about who I came from.

Your BM may or may not want contact.

Expect nothing. You might be pleasantly suprised, but also be prepared for a whole can of worms to be opened.

Original poster

TeacupTempest · 08/07/2011 10:15

Thank you for all the thoughtful replies. I appreciate the opportunity to get this off my chest and be heard a little. My DH is fantastic about it all as are my family but obviously is hard for them all in a different way.

I have not and do not base my self worth on her reactions to me (well I try not too!) I have no romantic notions of a rosy relationship with her. I did not go in search of her expecting very much at all.

Still deep down it is an emotive subject and the no contact at all seemed both harsh and hard.

Well I have no had an email form the social worker and bloody hell my birth mum wants to meet me!

And she has had the letter read to her over the phone and says she is very proud of me.

This all feels equally weird but made as I read the email I felt a burst of warmth.

Maybe if nothing else emerges form this search these words will be enough.

Feel a bit numb again now but for different reasons.

EggInABap sorry to hear about you situation. If its any comfort at all I know several other adopted people and I feel confident saying that all of them have had good lives and good family relationships and feel lucky to have been loved by their adopted families. I am sure there are ways to trace your brother if you wanted to do so.

OP posts:

SpringchickenGoldBrass · 08/07/2011 10:20

Hi, I'm another one who's adopted. I'm glad your BM wants to meet up with you and I'm also glad that you have gone about the tracing with proper support ie social worker. It might all go wonderfully, it might be a bit rocky on both sides. Try not to be too hard on your BM, it would have come as a shock to her to hear from you and she may well feel guilty about having you adopted - you presumably don't know (yet) what the circumstances of your birth were.

Best of luck with this. FWIW I have never traced mine but am intersted in how other peope get on with doing it.

rubycon · 08/07/2011 11:24

I posted on another thread - I'm a birthmum and I traced my child but was rejected, so it does work both ways.

Because of this I set up a site to reunite adopted people and was fairly successful, reuniting almost 800 families. The the law changed and I was unable to carry on.

There may be sound reasons why birthmums are hesitant in being contacted. It must have been an awful time in her life and to keep reliving it is traumatic. Do your adoption records show why you were adopted?

Original poster

TeacupTempest · 08/07/2011 11:26

Yeah they do. Unmarried mother, religious and social stigma. No one except her husband now knows about all this.

OP posts:

rubycon · 08/07/2011 11:28

Is the father mentioned?

rubycon · 08/07/2011 11:36

egginabap - you can find out a little about him if you wanted to, his birth will be registered under your mums maiden name (or married name if she was at the time). If you go to your local library and look up the Births, Marriages and deaths Indexes for the years prior to your birth it will be there. It gives you a starting point.

If you let me know which area you may think the birth was, I can tell you which agency may have been used for his adoption.

Teacuptempest - I envy your birthmum.

Original poster

TeacupTempest · 08/07/2011 11:39

Brief mention of father yes. Name and physical description. I now have his birth date and place too.

Sorry if this is bringing up bad feelings for you ruby.

I have to go out now but will check back later. Thanks again for all the support.

OP posts:

rubycon · 08/07/2011 11:42

No, I'm fine! Just because mine had a sad ending I always love to hear of happy ones!

GetOrfMoiLand · 08/07/2011 11:54

Oh poor you teacup. I really feel for you. I understand how you feel - I wasn't raised by my mother (she didn't want me, she hid her pregnancy and the first time she told anyone she was pregnant was when she had gone into labour). Evidently it was all very traumatic for her, however she left me to be raised by my (abusive) gran. It was all hideous and I was raised to believe that my mum was my sister, and my gran was my mum (I saw my mum about 5 times during my childhood). I got in touch with my mother when I was 17, we had a very fractured relationship of sorts, she blamed me for ruining her life, had all sorts of issues. In fact she was just an awful woman, refused to tell me who my father was etc. I just gave up in the end - broke off contact 2 years ago.

Anyway, sorry to ramble on, however what really hit a chord with me about your post was that you are on tenterhooks waiting for a response to your letter. I wrote a letter to my mother explaining all the hurt I have felt etc, and have no response (posted it two weeks ago). She had not mentioned the letter to my brother or to her sisters. It was like I had never sent it. I imagined that she wouldn't respond, and thought that writing the letter would be cathartic enough, however I feel like I have encouraged her to shit all over me again, and reject.

I feel so sorry for you, in that you feel rejected again. I know exaclty how you feel and understand how you feel that way. You do feel such a sense of rejection, your mother gives you up (despite huge social trauma at the time, I do understand that) and the realisation that your birth wasn't a moment of deep joy in someone's life, but was actually probably their worst day. That makes me very sad for the baby I once was.

I think though to go through life feeling rejected is where madness lies. It is so hard though not to feel like your are worthless though, when your are not given the courtesy of even being acknowledged.

Our situations are very different though, you don't have a rotten relationship to try and get over. Perhaps the letter to your borth mother has come as a complete shock. It may well be that she needs time to think things through, and to think of the right things to say. It could be that she is longing to see you, but is frightened. I really really hope that is the case.

GetOrfMoiLand · 08/07/2011 11:56

Oh I am very sorry I read the first post, skim read the rest of the thread, so I missed the part where she said she wants to meet you.

How lovely that she has written that she is proud of you.

I am so pleased. I hope all goes well. You must be terrified!!

oohjarWhatsit · 08/07/2011 11:57

presumably you have been searching for her for a long time

she has known for two weeks. two weeks isnt very long to absorb shock/grief/regret whatever else she may be trying to come to terms with

give her time to come to terms with it

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