Lilka ·
30/09/2012 16:03
I just read back through, and realised how long it has ended up! I wrote this chiefly for me, it has been very helpful for me to put this down, and I fully understand if the people on here don't read this, it is an essay!
Dear -
I am (DD1's) mother. I adopted her under 2 years after she left your home. In the last few days I have had a few conversations with DD1 about the time she spent living with you, in addition to the ones we have had since she came to live with me. I know quite a bit about you (or how you were back then), and yet not really that much at all, as her memory is not that good and much is blocked out. And of course, her perspective of that time, and her story of it, would be different to the one you would tell.
I know your names from her, and your address, but I have never looked you up online. I have had a funny kind of reluctance to do that - I used to be worried about what I would fine, and as an adult DD seems (although she doesn't share that many of her inner feelings about her past with me) uninterested. As she is an adult, I don't feel I have the right to dig into her past without her say so. Whilst I understand her disinterest and need to put it behind her, there are things I wish I could say to you. I have supported other parents who have been through disruption, and invariably when they talk, i also think about you.
Firstly, I don't now how much you want to know about her now, or whether you would want to hear from me (another reason I am not sending this to you). Maybe you have also partly blocked out the () months she lived with you, maybe you can't bear to think about it. Maybe you have to a large extent moved on, and have found peace from that time, built a wonderful life. Or maybe nearly 20 years later, you still feel a lot of pain and grief. Maybe news of DD would upset you - but maybe it would also bring you some peace. After all, you invested so much in her, and then all of a sudden you were cut off and were not told anything more about her from the moment she moved out of your home (so I have been told).
If you want to know about her, then I would tell you this, and I hope knowing this would make you glad for her. She is a mostly happy and strong young woman, who has overcome many of her challenges, and has a good life. She has a wonderful husband, and a beautiful daughter who is the light of her life. She is a great mother, and plans to have at least 3 children. She had a steady job (she stays at home now), she has some close friends. She has 7 little brothers and sisters, both biological and adopted, and they for the most part look up to her, and adore her. And of course, she is my beloved daughter (and still my baby). Her second adoption has very much succeeded, despite the tough times
When I think about you, I often feel very sad. I can't imagine how you felt when after months of trying to parent and support her, bond with her, love her, you could not make it work. I don't know the agony you went through when you finally had to end the adoption. I have been near that point, and it was the hardest time of my entire life. I understand a lot of what you went through trying to deal with her trauma, attachment issues and PTSD. I feel uncomfortable knowing that I would not have her if all your dreams had come true then, and that your loss ended up being my gain. I understand why you disrupted, and I don't in any way think badly of you. I am pretty certain that you didn't in any way stop caring and didn't just give up because it was difficult. You carried on past the point most people would disrupt at. From what DD tells me, you tried hard to get support, and it wasn't forthcoming. She was placed with you largely because of lies and misinformation given by social services, who already knew she was very unlikely to manage in a two parent home. I don't believe you had unrealistic expectation of her, you just really didn't know much about her before she moved in. I hope you were supported by your family and friends when she left you.
I don't know how that time has affected you, or whether you managed to remain together at all, as I am aware your relationship was tested a great deal. I know some parents who went through a disruption, and then were able to adopt again. i wonder if you were able to have a successful second adoption as well, or if you have been childless since. I hope you have found much happiness since then. I hope you found a way to move fowards with your lives, and I hope some of your dreams have come true since. When I think about you I am glad that two people out there also saw DD's information and wanted to make her theirs. I am glad that other people wanted to commit to her in the same way i have. After all, for nearly all 8+ year old children in care, that will never happen. They won't find adults who are willing to make that commitment. DD deserved to be wanted, and she was. I can't pretend the disruption didn't affect DD in a bad way, she struggled greatly to trust that I would actually adopt her and raise her. It continued to affect her years down the line. But as i said, given what DD has told me, I do not blame you.
She does have a few good memories of her time with you - she remembers some of her first nice experiences in life happened at your home. I am so happy she was able to do these things with you. I am sure you worried for her future when she left you - I can tell you that she went to her second caring home after leaving you, a wonderful foster mother with whom she lived until she came to live with me. They still keep in contact. But you were her very first truly caring set of parents, and I am very grateful for that. She tells me that whilst she did not understand what was happening at the time, and therefore felt abandonned and angry, now as an adult she does understand. She also feels that you tried so hard, and she hopes as i do, that the last 18 years have treated you kindly
With best wishes for the future,
