searching for birth mother - am 99% there I think

[pixiemamma]

deep breath
I believe I have found my birth mother via the electoral roll in the area she lives. However, she has a non-unusual name. I do have her DOB however. Is there anyway I can double check that this is her before I consider asking the appropriate organisation to act as intermediaries - I am NOT considering making contact without using an intermediary.
Any advice would be most gratefully received.
NB. she is in her 70s so she isn't on Facebook etc :D

Thank you

Wow that is such a big thing. I did the same with my birth mother almost 20 years ago and made the contact myself - big mistake.

You are doing the right thing to get intermediary help and they will know how to make further checks if you need to. My birth mother had an unusual name so no double checking needed so maybe someone else will know, but I'd get support for the next stage.

Scary stuff - I remember it well! The butterflies must be immense for you right now

No advice other than to suggest you post this in the Adoptions section too?

I would ask an intermediary like the Salvation Army to do their own checks and let them now continue the search that you started. Would give them all the information you have and let them do the rest.

loves2 - if you don't mind me asking, what was her reaction? I think that mine is married to my birth father & that they have no more children, they are NOT on any contact registers though :/

Oh, and I didn't find the adoptions section - will now look - thanks

Attila - I've thought about this, but the always disclose to the person, and I just need a bit more time to think it all out. I think they're still together you see, so I'm puzzling out what their reaction might be. I could not cope with their rejection you see

I know that feeling of being scared of rejection. I needed a ridiculous amount of wine on the night I made contact to get me over that, and that's why it was such a big mistake.

But in your case, you're being really sensible.

my birth mother was great (once she'd got over the shock of my 11pm-out-of-blue phone call). She felt it her duty to meet me to explain things so we did that. She was on no registers at all.

But she was not with my birth father and just said she wasn't sure who he was 'it was the swinging sixties.....' so that was not so great.

Your situation sounds so very different and I can see how you must be struggling with such deep and possibly painful emotions given her and your birth father are still together. The fact their names are not on a register means nothing. My birth mother told me her name wasn't as she felt she 'had no right to me' anymore after giving me away. I was the second baby that she'd given away - how sad is that? Her family couldn't cope with stigma of unmarried mother so made her give us both up.

Take great care of yourself and your emotions over this next period. And stick to your plan to get help. Take it slowly. I hope you have a close friend or partner who can calm you when you need calmed and support you through this.

I have gone around in circles in my head wondering what their reaction might be. Apparently they were 'hoping to get married but didn't want to start married life with a baby'

I also learned that she apparently had a very traumatic birth and had a long and painful recovery. Maybe she associates me with that and has rejected me fully in her mind. I think that her birth experience put her off having any more children. She might hate me. God, what a mess [my head is] because on the other hand she may regret what they did bitterly - although she is still with him - do you get an idea of what's on a loop in my mind?

of yes, I get an idea and can remember this type of loop though of course every person's situation is so different.

I really really would not think she would blame you for a difficult birth. I have never heard any of my friends 'blame' their babies. I have heard them struggle to bond with their babies after a traumatic delivery but think that is much more related to their exhaustion/ongoing health and treatment and a sort of post traumatic stress disorder where they struggle to stop re-living the difficult bit. That is common with any life experience where you think you or a loved one (baby) might die.

So I do not think she would 'blame' you for the difficult birth. She may have made that decision because of the messages society gave her about becomming pregnant before marriage - how old are you? She may have deeply regretted her decision, but she may not have done. She may have been unable to conceive/give birth again due to damage and may have been very sad about that for a very long time now. By getting in touch you may open up something very painful in her, but she might also feel hige relief to know you are alright.

She may actually want more from a relationship with you, than you are able/prepared to give. Have you thought about that? That is trickey to imagine but it sort of happened to me in that my birth mother is the one asking to meet again (we've met twice already) and I think up a million practical reasons why I can't arrange anything, but I think deep down inside myself I don't want to form an emotional bond with her. I feel terribly guilty about that because she has had a shit life and seems emotionally scarred. Now I'm sort of rejecting her because I can't face the pity I feel for her - that is awful. BUt I don't regret that I made contact. She said she can 'rest easy' now that she knows that I was well loved and taken care for. She always wondered what had happened to me, so I am glad she no longer has to deal with that painful wondering.

This is why you need support for it - because there are so many different ways this could go and they may be difficult to handle in ways that you can't yet imagine.

On the other hand, it sounds like you have found her and that is wonderful and you are well on the road to having all your questions answered and at least starting to connect at some level with her and your birth father.

thanks so much for your reassurance - do you think that you sometimes wish that you'd not found her, and just kept with the fantasies? I had always thought that I would discover that like your BM, she had got pregnant young and couldn't keep me, but she was married to someone else who she had left to be with my BF. She was 26 too - not a girl and was a Mrs XXXX.
I just get this sense that they/she may be cold and pragmatic about it.
There's no way out of the loop though other than to find out though, is there?
Thanks again for sharing your story with me and for your reassurance. Hopefully I'll have a complete story one day too.

I found mine and wasn't totally happy with all that I found but I don't regret it and I think if you don't do it, it will always be something you feel you haven't done yet that you need to do at some point. Maybe it is about finding answers to why they gave you away or a more primal thing, I don't know.

Just to give you a diff prospective my ex wife, found her dad after paying someone to find him, she sent a letter to his house, the next morning he rocked to our address very unhappy as he had a new life, and basically claimed her mum was having an affair with several men, but he refused any form of DNA test, and got more and more agitated.

cue several weeks of tears and upset, and the awkward conversations she had with her mum about if he was telling the truth.

I appreciate she was not fully adopted, but just wanted to say you are doing exactly the right thing in using an outside service to contact them.

I really hope they are pleased to hear from you

I found my bithmum 5 yeras ago almost accidently through genes reunited. She had a very unusual name.
I did make contact with the person who had added the name only to discover she had died a few years previously.
However l do have a brother and nephews now.

BUT the emotional rollercoaster and fallout was and is enormous. My brother and l are alike and get on well but l gained as did he--a whole system overload of information for us both.
It was as tough for him as well as me in different ways.

She was unmarried and daughter to a local "VIP" and the shame was enormous. There was no question as to wheither she could keep me, in fact she shipped off to Scotland ..

Te information gained has changed me as a person.

Do l regret contact--NO
would l do it again YES but only after counselling prior to contact and help dealing with the information gained. It affected my relationship with my husband and family and my mind was screwed up for quite a while.

The need to know was overwhelming and l do wish you well. My one regret was putting off the search until it was too late

If you use an intermediary they should automatically check that you have reasonable certainty that this is the right person. If you are an adoptee - I recommend norcap. They are very experienced and would check over your information.

I have been down that road - back in the dark ages when it was always a DIY job. Have you checked to see if she ever changed her name via marriage, or had a husband or other children who might live close by, for example? The great thing about brith/marraige/death records is that they have addresses and dob together.

In answer to your question pix about having regrets - I don't ever regret doing the search. I went through a huge amount of pain, which is why I have said to you to make sure you have people around who can give you support and time to go through it. But I don't ever regret it. It is the story of my life and I needed to hear it, whatever it was. I had to weave it in somehow and until I actually knew why she couldn't keep me, I had no way of doing that. I am so settled about it now, the whole thing is calm for me.

You sound as though you need to know. You sound as though you are trying to make sense out of the tiny bits of information you have - and that is really hard as there are always so many unanswered questions.

You say you have a sense they were cold and pragmatic - well, you just don't know what other factors influenced their decision. It is impossible to imagine what was going on for them in their decision making and you drive yourself crazy making up explanations. Like, my BM told me if she had kept either of her babies her father would have lost his job, such was the stigma of unmarried mothers. I would never have made up that scenario. They may have been told they would have been disowned by either family if they married with a baby - you just don't know.

There is only one way to find out, like you say, but you need to be prepared to hear things that you may not understand or like.

What sort of support do you have? Does your adopted family know about your search?

I too am adopted and tried for years to find my BM. Eventually I used an agency and they were great.

They wrote to her, a sort of cryptic note, stating xx (giving my birth name) would like to get in touch. This gave her the option of covering if she hadn's told her husband about me.

However, she had told her husband and wrote back saying she was sorry, but the past should say in the past and she hoped I'd had a happy life and she'd see me in heaven.

I thought I was prepared for the rejection, but I wasn't. It was really upsetting as it felt like she'd rejected me twice.

Not to be deterred though, I found I had a half-sister who was in her 40s. I wrote to her telling her the whole story.

She phoned me the next day saying she hadn't known anything about me and she was shocked her mum had never said a thing.

She took it upon herself to bring her mum round and we eventually met up. It was really lovely but they live so far from me it was like communicating with strangers., i.e. what's the weather like etc. We eventually lost touch but I am glad I made the effort and glad I met her as it gave me a sense of knowing who I was iyswim

Good luck and use an intermediary

Hi, very interested to hear how it's going since the last post. I found my birthmother in 2004 and although it has been emotionally overwhelming at times (for many people not just me) most of the story is positive. I did a lot of the legwork myself and then used NORCAP as an intermediary - they can confirm you've got the right person and make contact discretely. That distance gives you a bit of a buffer in the initial stages. Am still in contact with her and we've built a relationship that defies definition really - we're not mum and daughter, it's more 2 adults trying to relate to each other. wish you luck and would love to know how you get on.

Hi Fernie
I have found my BM and discovered that 1 year after my adoption she married my BF and one year later they had a son....
I have all of their addresses and a letter still on my computer. After Adoption suggest that I wait until I have seen my adoption file before I send the letter - they think it might help me. So, I have requested the file and am waiting to hear back.
I don't know about using an intermediary, but I do wonder if I need some 'professional' help as my head is fried and my partner is worried what the fallout might be from this. At the moment I've slowed right down, I was all set to post the letter, but knowing that they are a complete family has really really messed my head up and I'm not sure what I think about it.

Hi pixie, hope you're well. I've only just noticed that you updated here a few days ago. I wish I'd seen your update then, but maybe you're still around??

You're in a really distressing phase of this right now - having some information but not the full story from the person/people that most matter - your birth parents. Your mind will be playing tricks on you big time by making up all sorts of scenarios and then having gone through a particular 'made up' scenario, you then feel the very real emotions attached to it. It's terrible, I've been there with a 'head fried' feeling.

Noone can reassure you that it will all be fine in the end. But this phase does not need to go on indefinately and you can be reassured about that. You will get through this bit to the next, and so on. At some point in the future, this will be resolved for you one way or another and all you can do in the meantime, is be patient with yourself, kind to yourself and accept a certain level of fried-head stuff.

Getting your file will be helpful in giving you more information, but you may not get answers to the most painful bit - why did they give you away and then have another child?

Please get intermediary help. I didn't and I so wish I had. I had friends supporting me, but objective help is so much better. Come back here if you want to talk about it some more.

Oh I just want to say something else as well - now I'm thinking of your situation -

which is I can understand your partner being worried about the fallout. But he needs to be your rock right now and while this is going on - he needs to take care of you while you're processing this stuff and for that he has to be calm - so tell him that!

I had my best friend with me all the time I went through contact with birth mother and she was fabulous - calm, reassuring and she let me get on with crying or worrying or whatever. In a way I'm glad I did all this before I met my H as he's a bit highly strung and emotional himself and could have been freaked out by it. Hope your partner can step back from worrying about any fallout - of course there will be some - but he needs to take care of you by giving you space, childfree time when you need it and he needs to be the one reassuring you that you will be fine - not you reassuring him of that IYSWIM!