That’s the thing about a name. It’s special to the person who picked it. My choices of baby names won’t be the same as yours. And it definitely isn’t the same as our children’s birth family.

When we first started thinking about adoption, one of my worries was that our future child would already have a name. What if we didn’t like the name? Would that affect how we felt about the child? That sounds ridiculous, but names do provoke a strong reaction in people.

I’m sure we’ve all liked a name and then gone off it when we come across someone called it who doesn’t live up to our expectations. I remember liking a particular name when I was about 10. Then I came across a girl about three years older than me with that name who liked to pick fights with younger kids. That put me off the name completely.

While we were waiting to be matched, I let myself gradually buy a few bits for our future child. It helped me believe I was going to be a mum. I couldn’t let myself think of names, though. One reason was I thought it would jinx things. I was also convinced we’d be matched with a child who was old enough to know their name. And even if we weren’t, I didn’t think it would be right to change their name.

Naming our daughter

When we found out about our eldest, she was six months old. Our social worker said to us early on that she thought we should change her first name, moving it to a middle name. Her birth mum likes boys’ names for girls, and it’s quite a distinctive name.

It was really difficult to think of a first name that fitted with her birth name. I can remember thinking that we should just pick our own names and lose the birth name completely. At that stage, I didn’t have the level of insight or understanding about the importance of the name as I do now. I’m horrified now that I ever had that thought.

The names our children’s birth family picked for them are not ones we would have ever picked. But that doesn’t mean they should be disregarded. They’re part of our children’s identity and history. In the future, they may decide they want to use their birth name as their first name. My mum has never liked her first name, so she has always been known by her middle name.

I’ve read some blogs written by adult adoptees who are struggling with their identity because their names were completely changed. Removing all birth names feels to them like their parents were trying to erase their birth history.

I’ve written a few times about our progress with life story work with our eldest. She’s at an age now where she understands the history behind all of her names, as does our youngest.

Birth name: being open and honest

We’re always honest (in an age-appropriate way) in our answers when our kids ask about things to do with their birth family. Recently, our eldest has been talking a lot about her name. She asked me why her second middle name is what it is. I told her that it was the name her birth mum picked for her. I also said that her sister’s second middle name is the name her birth mum picked for her.

She asked if she could choose her little sister’s first name when we told her about her. So, with our social worker’s approval, our youngest’s first name and first middle name were picked by us, and her second middle name is the one her birth mum picked.

At the moment, our eldest doesn’t like her birth name because it’s a boy’s name. But as she grows older, she has a choice. If she wants to use it, she can. The point is, she knows that it’s significant because her birth family picked it for her. As she grows up, I hope it helps her to understand her and her sister’s history.

So whilst it is just a name, there’s a lot more to it than that. We picked her first name, her first middle name is my middle name, and her second middle name was picked by her birth family. Our eldest picked our youngest’s first name, we picked her first middle name, which is also her niece’s, and my late aunt’s middle name, and her birth family picked her second middle name. So there’s a history and story behind all of their names, which we think embraces the children’s whole identity.

FAQs About changing your adopted child’s name

Head to the homepage to read more articles about adoption, parenting and wellbeing.

I’m Still Standing

Individual identity is important; we can all agree on that. But when I hear someone say, “Just be you”, I can’t help but squirm. For one, yourself is rarely what is best in most situations. Two, I also wonder, if simply being yourself creates the illusion that you have no power to shape or to mould out the (prolonged pause) bad bits?

Being a teenager and learning that such ‘self-crafting’ is possible could be an extremely powerful thing. However, there is a downside to this, because part of yourself is your past. And your past. Well, you can’t change that.

For some, the past they carry is heavier than for others. For anyone who is adopted, this burden can be quite large. This can take hold and then shape their identity more than they seem to be able to themselves. More than they want.

In my family, my adoption was talked about in a way that meant I created a toolset of motivation. What happened in my past with my birth parents wasn’t fun, good, or beneficial to me. But without sounding like a hippy, I firmly believe that life is riddled with rough times. And, after adoption, with the right support and mindset, we can all go on to take on the world headfirst.

This is the basis I have built my foundation on as a person. And this is a way for you, too, to take control of your past, no matter what it is.

I’m thankful I have the resources to do so, because even though it was tough. I’m still standing.

By Arran Gray

Head to the adoption section to read more interviews and articles written by adoptees.

The group work is key to them being able to reflect the way they do. They’re passionate about giving young adoptees the chance to be part of a similar community. The Ambassadors would love to campaign for all adopted young people to have access to group work and to give young adopted people across the world a space to be part of a similar adoptee community.

Over the next few weeks, I’m resharing the blogs because they give such a powerful insight into some important issues young adopters face.

The first blog is written by Chloe.

I see Me

Are you still trying to figure out who you are, or have you already found yourselves?

If the latter, congratulations! However, for those of you who are still finding yourselves, here are some things from my journey I’d like to share with you.

For me growing up, if adoption was spoken about at school, it often came from playground insults. I heard a lot of “LOL, your birth parents didn’t want you” or “Is your life like Tracey Beaker?”

I’m sure those of you who’ve been pointed at and insulted felt the same as I did. It affected my confidence and how I viewed myself.

For a long time, I took these insults.  However, in the past year, I decided – no longer! The last time I was insulted, I replied with the following, “No, my life is nothing like Tracey Beaker and why I was adopted is none of your business”.

Back in my birth town, everyone knew me and my family as a problem family who needed to be taken care of. This also impacted on how I saw myself.

My adoption journey

Throughout my adoption journey, there have also been a variety of feelings that have troubled me. For example, a sense of abandonment, confidence issues and a lack of control. These feelings have come from both my experiences and from how others perceive adoption as a whole.

With both, the result has meant that adoptees think that how we feel inside is how others feel about us.

The good news is, things are getting better. Growing in age, leaving the toxic environment of school and realising that through things like work, I now have confidence that I can control my own future.

Now, when I feel negative about my past, I remind myself that only I have the power to change my identity.

I see Me!

Head to the adoption section to read more interviews and articles written by adopted children and adults, sharing their experiences.

Introduce yourself and your family 

I’m Suzy. I live with my husband and our two daughters who are full birth siblings.

How often do you have contact with birth family?

We do annual indirect contact every summer. We usually get any replies a few months after we’ve sent ours.

How does this happen? 

It happens via a written update. I write it electronically at the moment and send it to the post adoption team at our agency. They then forward it to birth family and sibling’s families.

We had asked for direct contact with the sibling born in between our two. We had been asked if we wanted to be considered for him, but decided it wasn’t the right thing at that time for our family. We asked if direct contact could be considered but it was completely overlooked by the local authority. As was indirect contact at the start and we had to push for this to be set up.

Eldest has met one of her older sisters. We had a few years where we attended an adoption event set up by our agency. Our social worker knew a sibling would be attending with her parents, so we were introduced to the parents. At the event the second year, eldest was actually sat beside her sister as they got their faces painted.

I found that really emotional because the sibling’s family hadn’t told their daughter about her younger sister. We had to respect their decision, but it made me really sad, because that would have been the perfect way for them to start to get to know each other. They live less than five miles away, so direct contact would have been very easy.

We didn’t go the last year the event was held because our eldest had been looking at her life story book a lot and would have recognised her sister from her photo.

What kind of things do you include in the letters? Do you send anything else like photos or pictures drawn by your children?

I find the updates quite hard to write because I want to share how wonderful the girls are, but I don’t want to be insensitive. I can’t imagine what it’s like for birth mum to get an update about how two of her daughters are doing. I want her to be happy to read the content, but I don’t want her to think I’m showing off at how well they’re doing.

It tends to be likes, dislikes, sharing their personality and how they get on together. I know that birth mum was very pleased when she was told they were going to be placed together, so I write quite a bit on their relationship. I tend not to write specifics in terms of holiday locations and focus on activities like going to the beach or a train ride.

This year eldest is six and so has a much better understanding of her birth history. She’s currently talking a lot about her brothers and has asked if she can draw them a picture, so we’ll include that this year.

Do your children get involved with writing the letters?

I currently write the updates, but I hope that as the children get older, they’ll want to be involved more. It would be nice if they wrote their siblings letters and hopefully get replies. It’s a great way to start to develop their relationship so that there’s something to build on easily when they’re ready to meet.

Have you requested any help and support in connection with contact from your agency? If so, what sort of help did you receive?  Did it do what you needed it to?

We haven’t asked for any help yet. I’ve found blogs and articles in the magazine really helpful. An Introduction to Life Story Work for Adoptive Parents, written by Dr John Simmonds, Director of Policy, Research and Development at CoramBAAF, is really helpful if you’re just starting out with life story work and contact.

I am going to ask for some advice this year about photographs. Our contact agreement is just for letters, but eldest has asked to see up-to-date photos of her siblings, and she’d like them to have more photos of her and her sister. I also think direct contact may be something they both want to have with the siblings who live close to us, in the not-too-distant future. That will have to be done initially through post-adoption support, but I really hope, if the children want it to happen, it’s something that is supported by everyone.

Do you get any replies from birth family or siblings?

Initially, we got replies from one sibling and then the sibling between our two. Unfortunately, last year, we didn’t get any replies at all, which is really sad. Our agency became part of a regional agency. so I’m hoping the replies are there, but have just not been forwarded to us. I’ll chase it up when we send out the letter this year.

Unfortunately, we’ve never had anything from birth family. I’m really sad for our children about that because I think it would help them as they get older and understand things more, to be able to read a letter from their birth mum.

If you get replies, do you read them to your child?

The last time we got replies from siblings, our eldest daughter was too young to understand. As we explore life story work more, we’ll read them to her. If we get replies this year and going forward, we’ll read them to the children as and when we get them.

When your child came home, did they have any memory of their birth family?

No, our eldest daughter was nine months old and our youngest was six months. They didn’t live with their birth family and had very little contact with them when they were in foster care.

If no, what age were they when you started life story work? 

Eldest was about two and a half when we started introducing the concept of her growing in her birth mum’s tummy and our hearts. I think she was about three when we started going through her book. I was terrified about how she’d react to knowing she had siblings, but she coped with it really well. You can read more about our experience of how it went the first time we showed her the book.

Our eldest daughter has always asked questions whenever she wanted to about her birth family. Questions tend to focus on her siblings, her brothers in particular. She’s recently been asking if she can go and see them when the virus is gone so she can give them a hug. I really hope they know about her and her sister, and they’re asking about them. But at the moment, we’ve got no way of knowing if that is the case or not.

The only thing that our eldest has struggled to process has been the fact that she didn’t grow in my tummy. When we first started doing life story work, she got very upset when I said she didn’t grow in my tummy. That broke my heart. When she looks through her book, she doesn’t ask any questions about her birth parents, but always asks about her siblings. Hopefully, as she gets older, she’ll be curious about them too.

What kinds of things did you use to support life story work?

Both children have a book created for them by their foster family, and they have an “official” life story book. Eldest doesn’t have a later life letter, but the one done for our youngest will be used for both of them because the circumstances were more or less the same. Eldest’s social worker left the agency just after placement, and despite lots of promises, the later life letter was never done by anyone else. We agreed with our youngest’s social worker that one letter would be used for both of them.

A later life letter is a letter written by your child’s social worker, explaining why their birth family couldn’t look after them. I think it’s something the children will read when they’re much older – I found it an emotional thing to read.

Eldest has access to her life story book and will look at it when she wants to. She knows all of her siblings’ names and loves to look at their photos. We haven’t read through the words with her because she’s still too young to understand, but we will as she gets older. We’ve found books like “The Family Fairies” by Rosemary Lucas and “Blanket Bears” by Samuel Langley-Swain really helpful in terms of explaining the roles of social workers and foster families.

Both children were with the same foster family, and it helped our eldest understand their role a bit more when we met them again for introductions with our youngest. Our eldest had no memory of them, but knew them from their photos in her books. The foster family were over the moon to see our eldest again, and it made introductions so much easier. We keep in contact with them via email, and I send regular updates and photos.

Have you accessed any type of help or support with life story work?

No we haven’t.

How has your child reacted to life story work?

At the moment, our eldest is taking everything in her stride. She asks questions when she wants to, and we do our best to answer them honestly, in an age-appropriate way. I expect that things will get more difficult for them to deal with as they understand more about their birth family and their history. I hope that they will always feel they can talk to us about it and that they know we’ll support them 100%.

I hope that one day, they’ll understand how we’ve all played different roles in their lives, but we’re all their family who love them very much.

 Head to the adoption section to read more articles about life story work, introductions, matching and more.

In this article, @forever_macfamily shares how they tackled the letter and how they were able to make it so much more than just a list of things the child was doing.

The Settling in letter

It’s the first piece of written correspondence most of us are going to have with birth family. It’s natural to feel a bit overwhelmed about putting pen to paper.  It is, however, incredibly important to start as you mean to go on and it’s even more important for our children that we, as the adopters, take the lead in making these letters meaningful. 

Regardless of the situation that has brought our little ones to us and how that might make us feel about their birth families, we owe it to our children to be respectful and considered.

When writing our settling-in letter I took the lead over my husband as I wanted to write it mother-to-mother. Our birth mother didn’t want to meet us during introductions, so I wrote to her initially then; I wanted her to know that her daughter was going to be loved and was so incredibly wanted. But I also attempted to anticipate some of the questions our daughter might ask us when she’s older. 

We asked about her pregnancy, her childhood, favourite tastes, toys – that sort of thing so that we could provide those answers if our daughter came home from school one day asking what her birth mother craved during pregnancy.  Luckily, with the assistance of her worker, we got a response. That meant I could personalise our settling-in letter more easily and observe some of those connections. 

Sharing lots of detail

It was also very important to me that the letter was more than a perfunctory paragraph stating how long she’d been home, that she was feeding and sleeping well and liked to watch TV.  That’s just simply not enough. 

I wrote about all of the trips we’d been on, how much she was developing, about meeting her extended family, and how our daughter reacted to each of these things.  I made sure it was full of emotion and reassurance of how completely besotted we are with her and how incredibly lucky we feel to get to raise her. 

Of course, I spoke about what she was eating and playing with, and because of our earlier exchange, I could relate elements of that back to the birth mother and take the opportunity to ask further questions.  I described our house and her bedroom; spoke about the classes we enjoyed going to and gave a full report on her personality and how she was developing and meeting milestones. 

After I’d written our letter, my husband proofread it and added what he wanted to put in, so that we had both contributed.  I made sure I had no distractions for the period it took me to write it as I wanted to put what was in my heart down on paper. 

A journal of our daughter’s life

I think it’s important to remember that all of these letters are stored in our children’s files. When the time comes for our daughter to read hers, I want her to know that we love her enough to make every effort with letterbox contact.  Moreover, these letters will be like a journal for her to refer back to when she’s older, so she can see what she was up to over the years. 

If it helps to approach these letters like that, then it’s worth considering.  I am storing copies of the letters we write for her. Not everybody finds writing easy. Some might find it challenging to articulate their emotions – try dictating the letter and using an app to transcribe it for you. You can always edit it afterward or ask your social worker to help. Our daughter’s worker proofread our letter for me before I submitted it as I wanted to ensure it was phrased appropriately. 

Adoption is complex

It isn’t easy to make these connections. Adoption is hard and complex. For every happy emotion we have, there’s a moment of sadness for what our children have experienced and lost and perhaps for our own experiences and losses that have brought us together. For us, it was infertility and although we always felt we would complete our family through adoption, there’s not a day that I don’t wish I had given birth to our daughter. 

It would be too easy to demonise the birth family and resent them or feel anger towards them. But it’s not helpful to harbour those emotions.  I try to focus on the privilege of raising our little girl and how incredibly lucky we are to have found each other.  With that comes a realisation that if it hadn’t been for all that we lost, we might not be here now, together.

In that context, spending an hour or two once a year, to write a heartfelt letter to the person who gave birth to our little girl, really is the least we can do.  If we receive a response, then I’ll be glad, particularly for our daughter. But if we don’t then we know we’ve performed our part in the adoption triangle and put our daughter first. 

If you enjoyed reading this article, why not buy me a coffee to help keep the magazine free for everyone to read? If you’d like to read more articles about adoption, health and well-being, and parenting, head over to the home page and have a look at what’s new.

It’s so important that adopters understand the importance of contact for birth families. It’s sometimes the case that they don’t feel able to reply to our letters, but that doesn’t mean they don’t cherish every word that’s written. Sammy does receive some help and support to write her letters, but I don’t think that’s always available in a way that encourages birth parents to reply.

How often do you have contact with your child?

I have indirect via letterbox yearly.

How does this happen?

I get two letters via the letterbox team in my local authority.

What kind of things do you include in your letters? Do you send anything else with them?

I send photos of me, her cat, anything new in the family, and a birthday card. I always ask about health, school, wellbeing, likes and dislikes, her birthday, and Christmas. I ask about her pets and how her adoptive parents and brothers are. I also add memories from home and her cat and fish here and anything they have told me. Her adoptive parents write first then I reply. I include anything I’ve been up to too.

Have you requested any support from the local authority in connection with contact?

I receive help with my letters via the letterbox team. They help me with what is good to put in, but nothing around how it works.

If you haven’t received any support from the local authority have you received any support from another organisation?

Yes. I’ve received support and currently still do from PAC-UK. It helps as they don’t judge like social services do and see me as a parent, not a failure.

What do you get in reply to your contact letters?

They write first which is two letters, one from the adoptive parents and a hand written one from my daughter.

What type of information is in the letters? Do you think there’s enough or would you like more?

I get told a lot of information about my daughter’s daily life. Their letters are always two pages long and her own is a page long. I feel I get told a lot which I love and am really grateful for.

How old was your child when they left your home?

She was three-and-a-half when placed with her potential adopters and six when the adoption order was granted.

Were you asked if you wanted to add information to her life story book? If yes, what did you add?

I asked them and they agreed. They asked me to get photos and information about me, her family, her dad, pregnancy, birth milestones, later life letter, and any wishes I had for her future. 

Is there anything else you’ve given her such as an item of your clothing or keepsake?

My daughter has my brown bear called Benji. I got him from Santa one Christmas Eve as I was ill in hospital. I gave him to her and I’m told she knows what he means and that she has him. She also has a locket with a picture of us and her cat.

Did you get any support with life story work? 

The family practitioner came to my house and we put it together. She had worked with me and my daughter from when they became involved up to the final goodbye. She and my daughter had a good relationship. She showed me the information up to her being in foster care and what she put in about that. Then I couldn’t see anymore as that was information about her adopters.

If you’d like to read more articles about adoption, health and well-being, and parenting, head over to the home page and have a look at what’s new. Head over to the life story section to read more articles about this subject.

Contact

This week I read – like many of you – articles of the report regarding plans for birth family contact post-adoption, carried elsewhere but exemplified in this article from the BBC.

I understand that birth family contact is an emotionally testing subject, especially early on, and it’s obvious that birth families can present varying levels of complexity, and even risk, when planning contacts. This area is emotive, nuanced, fraught with difficulties on all sides. How can we balance the needs of adopted children – at which we are often little more than guessing, pre-placement – with the well-being of birth family members, and the needs of adoptive families for safety – both physical and emotional?

But the fact is, unless you’re planning not to give your child a phone until they’re 18 – and frankly even if you are, since kids will borrow phones, and use school PCs to access social media – then issues around contact will arise in the future, regardless of what you want, what’s best for the kids, or how well-educated in the dangers you think your kids are.

Social Media

When these issues arose for me, I was startlingly ill-equipped for them, and unjustifiably surprised by how little anyone could do to help me. Social workers are powerless, and the police are, understandably, unable to engage unless a crime has been committed. However unhelpful contact is, if the child welcomes it, it cannot be effectively prevented.

The “mostly-closed” adoption model underpinning the basis of most adoptive families today was never fit for the social media age. When I adopted, much vague talk was heard about future difficulties, without the reality truly being apparent either to my fellow prospective adoptive parents, nor frankly, to those training and preparing us. Such resolution as was to be had, as it is with so much parenting adoptive and otherwise, seemed to be “we’ll do our best when the time comes”. 

I read that report as a clumsy first step on the path to acknowledging this reality, and towards mitigating its consequences. The scope for damage and trauma in unmanaged or illicit contact is so high, the likelihood of it occurring so high, and the predictability of the protagonists so low, that whether we like it or not, the fact that children’s services and overseers are starting – however slowly – to respond to these facts are probably the first stirrings of a good thing.

That said – before I return to this matter – I’ll share something else:

Adoption Support Plans

I also recently attended an online discussion, hosted by Adoption UK and presented by CoramBAAF, about the new Adoption Support plan forms that will be used to outline support needs before placement. It was a slightly prickly and misfired affair, partly since the word “form” had been missing from some of the publicity, and most of the attendees, myself included, were under the impression that they were there to discuss plans for adoption support.

The presenter went through the form and the motivations for changes since the last version, which were all well and good. But the overriding sense I had from the attendees was that this was not currently the principal barrier to effective adoption support.

The experiences of those on the call seemed to be that adoption support currently is badly fractured, under-resourced, and often poorly targeted. Many interventions occur that are unhelpful and even damaging. Funding is short-term and sporadic. Support from schools and other bodies varied, short-sighted and badly informed. Assessments seem endless, and helpful interventions scarce. The most common interventions seem to be offered on the basis that they’re available and cheap, rather than that they’re precisely what is needed. These are the issues experienced on the ground.

Regular reviews

A support plan written pre-adoption order isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, unless it is regularly reviewed. Having heard this week of friends being “sent the support plan” without having had any input to it, this does not fill me with optimism that the redesign of a form is going to be accompanied by any great new commitment – or inclination – from Local Authorities to engage seriously with a support plan’s co-production, regular review, or its implementation. Indeed – as I said on the call – I feel it more likely that renewed rigour around pre-placement support planning will simply lead to more adoptive parents being told “You can’t have that. It’s not in the plan.”

The needs of each child

With these recent experiences in mind, read Sir Andrew McFarlane’s response to the above report: “The recommendations concerning contact with a child’s birth family are especially important, but the particular arrangements in each case must be determined by the needs of the individual child.”

Quite.

I only wish I had faith that any practical changes we see on the ground in this area will be safely, sympathetically and equably managed and that management will be evidence-based, well-resourced, frequently reviewed and handled humanely.

The fact that I don’t have that faith is a product of my experiences, and those shared with me by friends and acquaintances. Until these change, I will struggle to get excited about either changes to support plan forms, however worthy, or recommendations from Westminster as to how contact would be managed in an ideal world.

It seems to me too often, great care is only taken at the end of the bureaucracy at which it is sufficient that a pronouncement is well-formed.

How old were you when you became a mum?

I was 28 years old

What were your circumstances at that time?

I was in a relationship with my child’s father. We’d been together about 18 months when I became pregnant. He has mental health problems but the relationship was good at this point. He was a little paranoid but was able to manage it OK.

What was your pregnancy like?

It was OK. I had gestational diabetes so had to have lots of tests, scans, and check-ups. She was measuring a little small. I had lots of morning sickness and heartburn but it was a good experience. Her dad was the nicest he’d ever been to me during pregnancy.

What were your circumstances when you had your child?

I was in a relationship with her dad but we didn’t live together. I was working. We were happy and excited to meet our daughter.

How were things after you’d given birth? 

After the birth, I was very tired as I was in labour for three and a half days. My body was dilating but she didn’t want to come out. She was born at 39 weeks and weighed just under seven pounds. We were happy but I was very nervous as her dad was worried whether he could cope with a new baby. That made me stressed but we got through it.

Were social services involved with your family then?

No, we had no involvement until my child was nine months old. This was as a result of an assault on me and he was arrested.

Did you have family and friends who were able to give you help and support?

Yes, I had lots of support from my mam and dad, family and friends. They helped a lot with her, particularly when I split up with her dad when she was a few months old. We sorted things out though.

How old was your child when they were taken into foster care? How did it happen?

My child was three and a half and I didn’t have a clue what they had planned. They turned up at my mam’s house unannounced at 6.08pm. The police were there too and said they had a form to remove my child into care.

I said no. I was handed a piece of paper that was a section 20 notice and was told to sign it. They told me they had 72 hours to keep her without a court order but didn’t explain that it was voluntary. I was stressed and confused and signed it as they wouldn’t let me ring anyone.

They took my child whilst she was poorly. She was screaming and scratched all my neck when they took her off me. That was the worst feeling ever. Watching your child being taken and not knowing if you’ll ever see them again. I wasn’t given a proper explanation, just that she wasn’t safe with me.

What were social services worried about? Did you agree with their concerns? 

Their concerns were domestic abuse and my ability to keep me and my child safe from the effects of this. I agreed that there was some domestic abuse from her dad to me. She heard shouting and saw me crying but was never there when he hit me. I didn’t agree that I couldn’t handle it and that she could get hurt. But I was blinded by what this all meant.

What help and support did you get from the social services?  Is there anything else they could have done to help and support you?

They were meant to get me moved away whilst her dad was in prison. He was sentenced to 16 weeks for assaulting me. But that move never happened.

They told me to go around the corner to my dad’s as he was deemed a safer option. Her dad turned up there the day he was released from prison. I was stupid and scared so I let him in so he didn’t kick off. My child heard and saw that behaviour again.

I know now it wasn’t the right thing to do. If they’d moved me, I’d have made that breakaway. I would’ve had 16 weeks to get my head in a better place and not feel scared that he could find us. Or helped me get an order to stop him coming near me. Maybe my child would be with me today.

Did you go to court and object to the local authority’s plan for your child?

Yes, I didn’t agree with anything or sign anything as I didn’t trust them. I needed to show the courts and my child that I was putting a fight up for her. I did lots of DV courses, a child safeguarding course, and a Better Families course with the local DV place.

They tried to say I still loved her dad, but I didn’t. I needed insight and help. I didn’t agree to the adoption either and contested everything. I tried to revoke the placement order but it was too late as she’d been matched to the adoptive parents. I later found out that she’d been part of an adoption activity day which I felt awful about. That made me feel like she was a cow at a cattle market.

What kind of support have you received since your child was adopted?  Counselling? Support groups?

I got nothing from social services at all. They just dump birth families and forget about the impact of what’s happened on them.  But I get support now from PAC-UK who runs a monthly group for birth mums and also 1^st For Families who help with dealing with the aftermath of adoption or when adoption is a plan for that family.

If you’ve had support, was it offered to you or did you have to ask for help?

I contacted PAC-UK myself and did a self-referral. I did that with the domestic violence courses and support groups. I didn’t give them the chance to help me as I knew it wouldn’t happen and I’d just be forgotten about again.

What advice would you give to a mum who’s involved with social services and is at risk of having their child taken into foster care?

I would tell her to leave that relationship if it was toxic or unhealthy, no matter how scared they were. There is help out there. You need to make a plan, tell a friend or family member and they can get help and somewhere safe. If it’s for other reasons, do what is asked of you and agree with social services about their concerns and work openly and honestly as that would get them far.

Did you get the chance to meet your child’s adoptive parents?  If you did, what would have made the experience better for you?

I asked in court but was told no as social services wouldn’t support it. There was an issue about their identity and that they could be known to us. I sent a letter to them and a memory box etc for my child. I helped put a life storybook together with lots of photos, memorabilia, and a story and letter for when she’s older for them to keep safe for her explaining why this happened and why she became a LAC child.

Do you have contact with your child? How often and how does it work?

We get annual letterbox contact which is from them and we can reply with a letter and photos from us but we don’t receive photos from them. As my child is six years old and remembers me, the adopters accept a birthday card for her and I sign it Mummy Sammy. They let her write her own letter to me as well. This is yearly via the letterbox team within my local authority adoption team.

Head over to the home page if you’d like to read more adoption stories.

This article was written by Reanna in 2021. She shares her incredibly honest thoughts about adoption and her experience as an adoptee. The best way for adopters to learn and understand the best way to support our children is to listen to those who’ve been through it.

You can follow Reanna on Instagram @re_theadoptee

My adoption experience

Now 24, I’m in that phase of life where I feel a bit lost. Some friends are announcing engagements and pregnancies. Whilst others, including me, are busy dreaming of the first night out post-covid. “2021 is gonna be the year of living my best life” is what we’re all saying, and whilst we are all united in wishing for a better year than what we’ve had to endure in 2020, our “best lives” widely differ.

Some hope for love and romance in the New Year. Some are hoping to achieve a career goal. Others, like myself, and I suspect numerous other 20-somethings, are just going with the flow (whatever that means).

I take on this attitude every year and never make New Year’s resolutions. It’s not because I’m a negative Nancy. I do have dreams, ambitions and wishes. But I learned early on that life cannot ever be planned. So when you put pressure on yourself to achieve the world and more, or you compare yourself endlessly to other people and think about all the things you should be doing at a certain age, you’re wasting your life away. Tomorrow is never promised.

I’ve learnt that living your best life isn’t an event, or a certain point of your life that you reach once you’ve achieved all you set out to and met all the expectations of the life cycle. So much of my life has been full of uncertainty and chaos. That’s meant I’ve spent much of my time in ‘survival mode’, just trying to make it through each day to the next.

Now, although I may feel slightly lost and anxious about my future, I’ve learnt to not only ‘survive’ each day, but to live each day and accept whatever circumstances I may be in, as my best life.

My early years

I was adopted at seven, nearly eight years old. Prior to that, I spent a year in foster care. The word ‘traumatic’ sums up my life best, and my experiences certainly haven’t meant I am now living my best life.

I remember so much of my early years, which included being exposed to lots of domestic violence, alcoholism, instability and poverty. My young birth mother was a loving, beautiful soul who had a traumatic life of her own and unfortunately struggled to provide for her children.

Having three children by the age I am now must have been so difficult. Caring for them as a single mum with little money, whilst also trying to grow up herself. She didn’t really help herself, however, having a bad drinking problem and regularly becoming violent. The final straw for children’s services was her doing time in prison whilst pregnant. She was sent to prison for a violent assault. A horrific, gory, violent assault that I witnessed as a four or five-year-old little girl.

After years of having no fixed address and moving from counties to cities to refuges, children’s services felt it best that myself and my two younger siblings were separated from her care. Myself and my brother went into foster care and were later adopted together. My sister went to live with her biological dad.

Foster care

My year in foster care was just as, if not more traumatic than my early life. Although I had no real faith or religious beliefs, for some reason I used to make my storage boxes into an ‘altar’. I placed a couple of ornament keepsakes from my biological family on top. Kneeling down, I’d pray to God to ‘help me and save me’.

I felt unwanted and not liked by my carers because they’d told me multiple times they only cared for babies.  Missing my mum terribly caused a deep depression which meant I took out my pain, anger and loneliness on myself. It eventually led me to engage in self-destructive behaviours.

One day, my foster carers sat me down and told me they’d found me a forever mummy and daddy. I remember LITERALLY thanking God.

I had a really successful, happy and loving adoption. It wasn’t long after moving in with my forever mummy and daddy that I started calling them mum and dad. After a history of bed wetting, I never wet the bed at my new home – can you believe it?! It really was a miracle.

I still thank God to this day for my life now and for ‘helping and saving me’. Adoption has been the best thing to ever happen to me. But also the hardest thing to ever happen to me.

Recognising trauma

Being adopted is a traumatic experience in itself and I have come to realise the lack of recognition for this. Adoption is glorified – rightly so in most cases. However, we fail to remember (or perhaps we choose to ignore) the aftermath of a traumatic childhood. And how great an impact this will have on a person’s life. Adoption is wonderful, and quite literally – in my case at least – saves a child. However, many forget the personal challenges that lie ahead.

I struggle with identity on a daily basis, often totally conflicted about the kind of person I am. My character, wondering why I like certain things and hate others, questioning myself because I’ve not had someone ‘like me’ to look at. I have severe abandonment anxiety and struggle with my relationships and friendships due to the multiple significant losses in my life and subsequent sense of rejection.

I suffer from body dysmorphia, orthorexia and have regular body image crises due to my lack of self-worth and identity. My severe depression, PTSD and anxiety have led to me self-harming for years. It’s also led to panic attacks and two suicide attempts.

I suffered in every area of my life, particularly during my education days. Going through school is hard enough for any young person, let alone as an adoptee or a young person in care. I hid my identity due to feelings of shame and embarrassment. I felt so alone because no one ever speaks about adoption or foster care.

The future

I could literally write a whole book on what I struggle with due to childhood trauma, and this is my motivation behind starting my Instagram page.  I’m now in a position where I feel able and ready to share my story in the hope of educating others and spreading awareness of what we go through.

I want there to be more resources for adoptees and looked-after children because so often we can be mistaken for the ‘naughty kid’ or the ‘shy one’. Actually, we’re the strongest people you’ll ever come across, who just happen to have gone through sh*t we find hard to come to terms with.

So, when I look to the year ahead, I think about the kind of person I want to be and the life I want to live. As usual, I won’t be making specific plans and I won’t be setting goals with rigid timeframes, because from experience I’ve learnt that our lives are always unpredictable.

I was shocked to notice a lack of adoptee voices within the adoption world and this has also provided me with even more motivation to speak up and speak out for us. My main dream is to create something I wish I had growing up. Like a friend almost that just ‘gets it’. Because the feeling of loneliness as an adoptee is the most painful feeling in the world that leaves you in total isolation and fear.

All we can do is be true to ourselves. Speak and live our truths and show kindness and love. In the past, my life has literally changed in an instant. Now I try to always live in the beauty of the moment and take it as it is.

I wish I’d never had to go through half of what I’ve experienced. However, I’ve made peace with the fact it has made me who I am today; an extremely strong individual with a purpose. Before finally starting AUUK, I felt trapped in the shadows and full of fear to share my story. But now I feel ready to take centre stage and speak up for everyone without a voice.

I won’t be asking God to ‘save me’ this time, but I’ll ask for confidence to continue igniting my fires of passion to make a difference through speaking and living my truth on Adoption United UK. Because this journey is what “living my best life” is for me.

Head to the homepage to find out what’s new and read more articles sharing adoptees experiences.

I’m very lucky that I had the kind of childhood that I did. It gave me the tools and skills to be able to safely parent as an adult. I know that my children’s birth parents didn’t have that which is heartbreaking. If they had, they would have had a better chance at being able to safely parent all of their children.

I can’t begin to imagine how you pick up the pieces and move on with your life after the trauma of losing a child. That’s the reality though for the families of children who have been adopted. Supporting birth families is so important. I’m sure as our children grow up, they’ll want to know there’s somewhere their birth family can go to get help and support.

A good place to start for birth family support is PAC-UK. They are the largest independent Adoption Support Agency in the UK. They offer help and support to anyone affected by adoption, but the focus of this article is birth-parent support.

First Family Service

Their First Family service provides a range of different types of services for birth families. There is a telephone advice line to either their London or Leeds office. You can find their phone numbers and opening times on their website.

Face-to-face and telephone counselling are available, usually for up to six sessions. The intermediary service provides help with contacting and/or reuniting with an adult child.  There is also a range of support groups that are confidential and free of charge.

Full details of all of the support provided can be found on their website and downloadable regional leaflets.

Forget Me Not Garden

PAC-UK has been working with The Open Nest to create a memorial garden which is the first of its kind in the UK. The “Forget Me Not Garden” will be the first permanent garden in England dedicated to parents and wider family members affected by adoption. It sounds like a beautiful, peaceful place for contemplation.

PAC-UK’s website is packed full of information about how to access support for anyone affected by adoption and permanence.