Voice of lived experience: Birth parents

This is Ian, Becky, Bernadette and Nina talking about the range of feelings and reactions that they experienced when they became aware that their child was going to be placed for adoption. 

Oh, it were really bad at that time because when you first became suicidal, social services wanted police involved. Even resulted in me being arrested to protect myself by police. And it just snowballed. Everything just went wrong at that time. Nobody wanted to help. So I basically... suffering on my own. And then finally I got some help, but not really much. Social services kept on wanting me at arm's length. They just didn't want any contact, really. 

My most difficult moment was when I was in hospital. When I saw the other parents, all the other mums bathing and feeding their babies, but I couldn't feed my own. I'm not, not, not having my daughter by my bedside. That was most the most difficult bit. 

It was like someone taking something away from you. Falling into a hole, and being depressed and not been able to see your own child in the hospital. So they cut all ties off. The two hours that I had on my last contact was quite touching, quite moving for myself and my daughter. But though the social worker was still there, we actually went to a sensory room. We had two hours with my daughter, and then that was quite emotional when I had to put my daughter in the car. But I had the chance to go back to the sensory room for myself to rethink and recap. But after that hour, no social worker supported me, and I ended up getting the bus home. I think the hardest part was actually putting my daughter in the car, and saying goodbye to her. And that was the last time I ever saw her face. I think that must've been the hardest time.

From the word adoption, it's just a roller coaster, a total roller coaster of... what happens to you, every day leading up to that. Emotionally. Physically. Trying to try to spend time with your child. To make memories, to make the most of what you've got, but at the same time, not still fighting to keep what you've got. And it's... it's hard putting any parent in a position where you might have him, you might not. Because adoption doesn't... just the mere word of “We want to place your child for adoption.” It's, it's not over yet, but you've got to make preparations in case it is. And it's... I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, to be honest. How do you say goodbye to your child? How do you do that? You do physically. You say goodbye physically, and you say goodbye verbally. Emotionally, you don't. You don't say goodbye. You cling on to every bit of hope that you've got. But saying goodbye for the final time, you just, you want to grab hold of them, and you just don't want to let go. But you've got social services over your shoulder. They're all watching you. It's... it's an intimate moment that will... it stays with you forever. And you've got people watching you. You know, I hugged him and I said goodbye. To the point I even said, “I'll see you later.” I did what was asked of me. And then when this foster mother took him out the door, I watched him walk through the car park and round the corner, and I just collapsed. 

Here, Nina and Bernadette talk about their difficulties in obtaining adequate support for themselves after the adoption and the reactions of other people. 

When he was adopted, and I was left on my own, emotionally, I started to... not deteriorate, it’s too strong a word, but I started to withdraw into myself a lot more. And I phoned social services and said, you know, this. They probably saw it as “You've taken my son, and I want to know what you're going to do about it.” That's not what it was. It was, you know “You've had this involvement with me every day, and now you've left me. You know, I've got another child here to bring up, and I, I'm finding it hard to deal with what's happened, and I'm on my own now.” You know, I'm used to that interaction of... as much as it was unwanted interaction at the time. But it was still interaction with someone every day. But from the minute of the last... I got nothing. Just, almost like the world just disappears. You, you don't want to go out either. You just, you want to lock yourself away. You want to shut the world out. 

I was diagnosed obviously six years ago with personality disorder through social services. They wanted me to have a psychology test to see if I've got any mental health problems. That's when they picked it out, that I've got personality disorder, which is a condition. So that was one of the things why I couldn't keep my child as well. I've been backwards and forwards for the last six years to the GP asking for help, and not one... I've had counselling. Obviously after six years, there's nothing else they can do. So you're back on your own again. Friends and family – family, I've not had any contact with them for the last seven years now. They've all disowned me because of the situation and that, not one of them wanted to take my daughter on, to stay close to the family. Friends - I get bullied quite a lot because I've got a mental health problem, and also the situation to do with the father is the big issue at the moment. Wherever I walk in the streets, there's teenagers shouting it out. I don't deserve that sort of behaviour from anyone. Life at the moment is exactly the same as six years ago. Being called names, bullied. I have to move at the moment because of it. So for the last six years, I've been on the constant move from house to house, place to place, just so I can live a normal life.

Through the court process, let’s see, there was... so many people involved. There was a social worker, the guardian ad litem, the family. But, you know what? I can't remember what it's called now, the family centre, where you were involved with so many social workers, your doctor, your health visitor, you name it. Everybody was there and involved. But they were all there and involved for the child. There was no one for me. 

In this section, the birth parents reflect on their experiences of living with the knowledge that their child is adopted and of managing letterbox contact.

Particular times are hard at birthdays. My birthday, Mother's Day, Christmas day, and my daughter's birthday. So they’re hard times, and also particular court dates as well. You never forget. I don't have any contact at all with my daughter face to face. The only contact that I have once a year is letter contact. I'm not allowed to put on the letter “Mummy.” I've got to put my name on it, which I think is wrong when the child knows that you are “Tummy Mummy” from birth. So it is very difficult to write a letter to somebody that you don't even know very well.

Recently, I just received a letter from my daughter, and it's telling me things. What she's been up to last summer, and when I read it, I had tears coming down from my eyes because I feel like I can't do what the foster... the adoptive parents are doing. I feel like she's not my daughter. She only knows me as tummy mummy. It's hard for me to write back to her because I know what I can say in my head, but when it comes to putting it on paper, it just goes totally blank. My mind goes totally blank, and I'm just sitting there with a pen and man thinking “Well, what can I write to her?” and, and everything else.

I think the adoption has worked out really well for her, so I feel quite happy now that my daughter is making a family complete. But then I think “Well, she should have been with me. She's my daughter. She's my family.”

Just the word adoption in itself. You know, I'm not saying that adoption’s any worse than losing a child to death. But losing a child to death, you don't... for adoption, you've still got... you've lost that child. But to go with it, you've got the jealousy that you know someone else out there has your child, you still got that every day. Not wondering what they would be up to, but what are they up to? Where are they? Subsequent children that I've had have kept me going, and hope. Just hope that my son knew that I loved him. I needed him to know that I loved him, and I needed him to know that I didn't want him adopted. I needed... I needed him to know that it didn't mean he wasn't special just because I had other children and they lived with me. Letter box has been hard. I mean, I have... I've always known that my letter box was set up between myself and the adopters, so I always knew that I was writing to them. But even that was hard. I... I didn't ever want my, my son's adoptive parents... I didn't want to make them feel uncomfortable. My son is their son, and I didn't want them to... I didn't want them to think I was stepping on their toes.

Well, it's hard to rebuild your life. You've just got to learn to move forward. But the adoption is always in front of you. In fact, you got to be careful who you mention it to. Because you mention that you had a child adopted, it's like a label on your back, which follows you everywhere. So you’re careful where you mention it. Especially Christmas, that is one of the worst. I just get really fed up. In fact, birthday and Christmas - I don't think exist any more to me because I just block them out and treat them as a normal day. Just because there's a piece of my life missing.

I was working, and then all of a sudden, I just burst out into tears in front of customers at work and everything else, and I just couldn't deal with it anymore. What mainly it was... where I see other parents with their children, like going to the park or doing things with them, like swimming and stuff like that. And I can't, that's that.