I have two adopted girls who came to us under very different circumstances.  The younger, Carly, who is now 19, arrived at two years of age, having spent almost her whole life in foster care.

Probably the most difficult time as an adoptive parent is when questions about birth parents are raised.  Inevitably, upon reaching 16, Carly asked “Can I meet my birth mother?”

I’m your mother, I wanted to say, but didn’t.

I knew exactly how to contact her birth mother as I had found her on Facebook some years previously. From the miracle, or curse, of social media I also knew that Birth Mother had other children. Wary of direct contact and possibly to delay the inevitable, I suggested an alternative. 

“Let’s contact the social work team for advice”, I said. Social work referred us to Barnardo’s in Glasgow, and we had a series of meetings with a social worker, who was really very helpful. They applied to the council for Carly’s records (this took a couple of months) and they had a team of volunteers who research relatives as part of the service. In the event, we didn’t need them. My daughter’s birth dad was following her on Snapchat!

Fortuitously, by the time she spotted him and demanded to know who he was we had attended several meetings at Barnardo’s and worked our way very slowly and carefully through her file. There was a lot of difficult information. Drug addiction, alcoholism and time in prison featured in her family history.  She had been removed by social services from the family home after a hospital visit at a very young age, the circumstances of which were unclear from the records. 

The multiple meetings with Barnardo’s discussing her file meant that Carly had plenty of time to process this difficult information. It also helped me clarify details I had misremembered or not been told at all.   

After several months, and some message exchange via Facebook, we both met Birth Dad at a mutually convenient venue. The visit went well, and we arranged a follow up with his partner. Now they are in regular contact, and Carly has also visited her birth mum at her home, along with some extended family including siblings.

I generally take her to the visits, although I no longer stay. We have not shared our address with either birth parent to prevent any extended family from arriving unexpectedly. This is a boundary I felt I needed to establish to retain some control over the rapidly advancing situation.  

However, contact has been largely positive. Both parents are grateful that we are supporting Carly to be in touch with her birth family and there has been no animosity. In turn, she is grateful that she knows where she comes from, has details of her background and some explanation of what happened and why. 

Of course, everyone has a slightly different version of events.  This is to be expected but at 19 years of age and armed with the facts of her adoption, she is able to make up her own mind about the situation.    

Social media is a challenge, and it would be easy to skip all due diligence advised by social workers and make contact with birth parents directly. In my view this would be a mistake. Adoptive parents, birth parents, and most importantly the child, need to have time to find out details and absorb and process these. Barnardo’s were a vital help and support with this.  

I would also recommend a neutral venue and short supervised (by adopted parent) meetings at first until you are comfortable. Our journey has been positive, however, this is not the case in all families. Don’t be afraid to state and maintain your own boundaries. There is a huge extended birth family in our case, and I could not have coped with them all visiting us at home, for example.

Now, as I reflect, I think we managed contact as well as we could have done in all the circumstances. Best of all, I know that when my daughter says ‘Mum’, she means me.