Reconnecting: an adopter’s story
Published: Thursday, February 23, 2023
An adoptive parent, Maggie*, wrote into us to share with us her story of making contact with her daughter’s birth father, the support she’s received from Adoption East Midlands, and the profound impact this has had on her daughter’s life. She has given permission for us to share her experiences with other adopters across the region to help those who may, too, be considering different ways they can keep contact with their children’s birth parents.
*Names of individuals have been changed to protect confidentiality.
I adopted my gorgeous daughter Daisy when she was nearly four – she’s now twelve. A single parent family, we’ve had the usual ups and downs, and I have always been aware of how much Daisy misses her birth parents. Both of them fought to keep her during the adoption process. Daisy’s had some very limited letter contact with her mum (who she lived with for a while), but none with her dad, Dan, who she never actually lived with.
As Daisy got older, missing her birth parents began to take on a different quality, especially as she began comparing herself more to other kids at school. As her history with her dad was less complicated than that with her birth mum, it was the absence of her dad that Daisy focussed on most. She hated being different to other kids. She generally missed having a dad but she specifically missed her birth dad because she had sweet, vague memories of him at the contact centre when she was little. Daisy wondered what sort of person her dad was, and how this related to the person she was. She hated the lack of control she had over seeing him, and waiting to be 18 seemed endless. She also wondered why he didn’t write.
Although we talked about these things, I was aware how often they were on her mind when we weren’t talking about them. I increasingly felt that she needed contact with her dad – if possible. Of course, in the same way that she had fantasies of how wonderful he probably was, I had fantasies of how terribly things might go if we did try to have contact. He might not be interested; he might let her down; she might become pre-occupied with wanting more and more and more contact; her frustrations might ruin our relationship; or he might somehow find a way of running off with her!? Actually, what I knew of him gave me reason to hope that whilst he had made mistakes in the past, he was quite possibly an OK human being and Daisy could benefit from knowing him. I was hoping that, if she could replace the fantasies with some form of real relationship, it might give her peace of mind and a better sense of self.
When I eventually contacted the letterbox team, I was put in touch with Bev. Into all our angst, Bev bought her very practical, warm, empathic personality and her wealth of experience. I have pretty much never looked back since. Bev has been pivotal in bridging the gap between where we were and where we wanted to be. From the very first conversation, she seemed to completely understand where Daisy and I were coming from. She was fully aware of the potential risks and very skilled in naming them. With her support, we gradually worked out steps to test the water and see how far we could get in creating some sort of relationship with Daisy’s dad. I found Bev very, very, very easy to talk to, and I’m pretty sure Dan did too.
Encouragingly, although Dan had never written to Daisy, he had been in touch with Bev just before I had: he too had been wondering what might be possible in the way of contact. Bev began by coaching him in how to start writing letters to his daughter. It was something he had wanted to do but had found overwhelmingly difficult.
The impact on Daisy of receiving those letters from her dad was profound, possibly to the point of being life changing. It made her feel more whole, more normal and very much more loved. Her self-confidence and her ability to relate to other people (young and old) visibly grew. Her mood improved too. There were of course other things going on in Daisy’s life that also contributed to things improving for her, but I think developing meaningful, loving contact with her birth dad has been key. I know she still thinks about him a lot but the quality of those thoughts seems easier - less tortuous and less all-consuming.
I’ve also been impressed by Dan. He has been at pains to communicate just how important Daisy is to him and how much he appreciates the opportunity to build some form of relationship with her. He’s worked hard to learn all he can from Bev about what Daisy might need, and he demonstrates this understanding in each contact. His letters show real interest in and attention to what Daisy has communicated in her letters, and his letters are full of warmth, admiration and love for his daughter. I now see Dan as a decent human being who Daisy does benefit from knowing.
After almost a year of exchanging letters every two months I started to discuss with Bev the possibility of Zoom calls. Again, Bev did a huge amount of groundwork with us all to give the video chats the best chance of success. She facilitated the first call and since then we’ve done one by ourselves. With us all giving it our best, the calls have (so far) seemed relaxed and fun, and they’ve felt like genuine chats about the day to day stuff of life - pets, holidays, birthdays, school, etc. The current aim is three 40 minute zoom calls a year.
There have been bumps along the way. Daisy’s dad is not the most organised of people, and he does seem to get overwhelmed by other things going in in his life. So half the letters have arrived late, and that has caused some anxiety. But Daisy seems to have managed to adjust her expectations a bit, and recently told me that she focusses on how excited she is when waiting for his news. It’s possible he still finds writing the letters quite challenging.
Daisy does find it hard that whilst she now has contact with her dad, it remains very limited and tightly controlled. It’s frustrating for her when calls finish sooner than either of them would like, or when the letter exchange is done. The situation is not perfect - but she would definitely say it’s better than not doing it at all. Given we are all on our best behaviour during contact, she understandably – predictably – sees Dan as her absolute hero right now. But that’s how lots of girls see their dads, isn’t it?
I still occasionally worry about various things that might go wrong - like what happens if Dan suddenly disappears on us? There’s a tension between putting as much as possible in place so they can have some sort of meaningful relationship but not creating something that’s likely to break down. We all have to accept that this is a strange situation, and we aren’t going to get to a point where Daisy can go and stay the weekend with her dad in the way another child might. Not until she’s an adult, at any rate.
Bev remains superb in helping us – especially me – to manage the bumps and tensions along the way. She can tell when I need support and makes herself available to talk things through. She's also great at focussing on what’s working, what’s not and what we might need to tweak to make it manageable for everybody. So now I’m no longer pre-occupied by the question of contact: we have a plan and when it needs tweaking, we’ll tweak it. If all goes well, we’re aiming for face to face contact in the not too distant future – perhaps once a year.
The “bumps along the way” have also presented the opportunity to tentatively talk with Daisy about the fact that we are all human - and therefore all flawed to some extent - but this doesn’t have to cancel out the good bits in our relationships. I’m hoping these experiences will give her a way to gradually replace her overly heroic fantasies about her dad with a more realistic but still positive idea of who he is. That might even help her be more forgiving of herself too. Perhaps supporting her to develop a relationship with her dad now will lay solid foundations for their relationship when she does finally turn 18.
Each family’s circumstances are different. So far, we’ve been really lucky: lucky to have Bev; lucky that Dan wanted contact and was prepared to do the work to make that happen; lucky that Daisy has managed to tolerate the imperfections and uncertainty of it all. Things could have turned out very differently - and who knows what lies ahead?
Things might well have turned out differently if we hadn’t had Bev. She has a rare ability to hold everyone’s needs in mind, whilst quietly focussing on what it is that Daisy needs. Bev also manages to keep things light and fun, even though she’s clearly got her eye on possible risks and what we might need to do about them. Thanks to Bev, Daisy is developing a constructive, realistic – albeit tightly controlled - relationship with her birth dad. This means more to my daughter than words can express.
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