In case my BM is looking for me

robo

Hi all, first time poster here but I'm on Boards for years and have always been looking at the posts in here with great interest.

Anyway, so I am in my early 40's and was adopted and grew up always knowing I was adopted. I never felt that I NEEDED to know who my birth parents were as I thought this would be very hurtful towards my mother (adoptive mother who I will just refer to as my mother) and I was more interested in not hurting her more so than finding out who my birth parents were.

So in the past few years, this changed for me, but not how you would expect...I still felt that it my hurt my Mother (not by anything she said or that, just me) but every time I read a story about BMs looking for their children or talking about how difficult it was to give up their children (forced or by choice), I always felt for them so much. And I thought how I would hate if my BM was looking for me and was hitting a brick wall. Cos I don't think what she did was wring in the 70's - whether she gave me up by choice or was forced to, she did what she could or had to at the time and I was placed with a loving mother, who would do anything for me and loves me to bits.

I never felt anything was missing from my life and to any BM reading this, I am not saying this as anything hurtful, but just how I feel. But as I said the feeling of some BM going through the decision in their head to find me and then finding out that I wasn't on the register of adoptive people to be contacted was niggling at me more and more.

So lately I finally plucked up the courage (it was more a thing of getting time on my own with my Mam to talk to her), I brought this up with my Mam. I was in shock at the relief ( with tears in her eyes) that I had brought it up as she had wanted to say it to me for ages but like me, she didn't know how I would react but she wanted me to know that it was my right to look for my BM if I wanted to and it didn't matter what she felt.
So I was shocked with her reaction, as I really didn't expect her to be so supportive - I know, I know...she would have been told at the time that this may happen & that you should be prepared and assist with this etc...but still at the time, she was so delighted to be adopting me that she would have been happy hearing anything.

So now I begin...what I had originally planned to do when I thought of speaking to her about it was to fill in the form with my details to be contacted by anyone and see what happens next. So I am going to do that and see what happens. She did tell me a little bit more about where I was born and what she knew at the time about my BM, which is very surreal to know.

Why am I posting all this here - cos I just wanna share it as I have read all the different stories here and realise now that I found solace in some of them and well sharing is caring. So apologies for the long winded post. I'll keep you posted and sure as my Mam said "you may be going on a little adventure"...very true.

Rosepetals85

Hi
Just wanted to let you know my experience. Like you I am adoptive. For years I wasn’t pushed but as I grew older and having children of my own. I decided to start my search. I was adopted through cunamh. So I downloaded the form off their website and just filled in what I was looking for etc. that was in March and I had my first appointment with the social worker in April to get my non identifying information. So come June I had another appointment and they go through a bit more info. They contacted social protection agency and they had an address but wasn’t allowed give the adoption agency my birth mothers address. So what they done was send a letter to my birth mother through the social protection agency although they are not allowed to tell birth mother that they are an adoption agency. A few days after the letter was posted, I got a call from the social worker to say my birth mother called them and that they would come into talk to the social worker the next day. That was last week. Since then myself and my birth mother are writing a letter to each and I will send photos of myself. Just take baby steps. I was surprised have fast the were able to find my birth mother as I only sent the form off this March but everyone was different. Best of luck x

robo

Wow that is quick - I think I have resigned myself to the fact that nothing will come of it - I really don't know (like yourself). You know the thing that I am fascinated with is seeing someone who looks like me.
Best of luck with the letters & photos. I really hope that it goes well, but yes baby steps.

I am not sure, but I think its easier to trace BM once the adoption was legal etc - I have seen all of my paperwork and it was all legal.

Keep us posted, really hope that it goes well for you.

Rosepetals85

Thank you. First port of call is download the form to tell adoption agency what your looking for, then they will give you an appointment. You can tell them that you want to take things slow or basically you just want your non identifying info. Then decide what you what to do. I couldn’t have a nicer social worker. She emails me every few days or calls. The social worker will prepare you and have a chat with you. Again best of luck. I knew I would regret it if I didn’t do anything. Like you I look in the mirror and wonder who do I look like. I have two kids and they are the only blood relatives I know. I wanted my medical history to give to my kids and that’s how this search started.

Just to add your adoption agency will know your original name if you had it changed and your birth mothers name. Once you get that, you can go to the GRO and find your birth certificate.

robo

Thanks Rosepetals - good to understand the different steps involved. I really don't know what will happen. I can understand your desire for medical history with your children. I thought about medical history & really I am not bothered - but I think having children, I may think of it differently as its not just for me.

At the moment, I am just going to see if my BM wishes for any sort of contact and then I will play it by ear on how we will go forward.

Ghekko

It's great to have your mums support robo. My husband got to tell his mum that he was going to trace his birth mother and she was happy. She'd often told him she'd help but up to age 40 he wasn't interested in looking. Similar to you he looked for her in case she was wondering about him over the years. He reunited with his bmum in 2015 and its worked out well. I wish you the very best in your adventure. Hopefully yours will move as swiftly as Rosepetals85. Dh was waiting a year to see a sw.

decko11

Rosepetals85 wrote: »

Thank you. First port of call is download the form to tell adoption agency what your looking for, then they will give you an appointment. You can tell them that you want to take things slow or basically you just want your non identifying info. Then decide what you what to do. I couldn’t have a nicer social worker. She emails me every few days or calls. The social worker will prepare you and have a chat with you. Again best of luck. I knew I would regret it if I didn’t do anything. Like you I look in the mirror and wonder who do I look like. I have two kids and they are the only blood relatives I know. I wanted my medical history to give to my kids and that’s how this search started.

Just to add your adoption agency will know your original name if you had it changed and your birth mothers name. Once you get that, you can go to the GRO and find your birth certificate.

Is an adopted persons original name something they give out ?

I got told otherwise by AAI as its "identifying info"

Ghekko

decko11 wrote: »

Is an adopted persons original name something they give out ?

I got told otherwise by AAI as its "identifying info"

They may give the original first name but not the surname.

JaneyMac2

robo wrote: »

Hi all, first time poster here but I'm on Boards for years and have always been looking at the posts in here with great interest.

Anyway, so I am in my early 40's and was adopted and grew up always knowing I was adopted. I never felt that I NEEDED to know who my birth parents were as I thought this would be very hurtful towards my mother (adoptive mother who I will just refer to as my mother) and I was more interested in not hurting her more so than finding out who my birth parents were.

So in the past few years, this changed for me, but not how you would expect...I still felt that it my hurt my Mother (not by anything she said or that, just me) but every time I read a story about BMs looking for their children or talking about how difficult it was to give up their children (forced or by choice), I always felt for them so much. And I thought how I would hate if my BM was looking for me and was hitting a brick wall. Cos I don't think what she did was wring in the 70's - whether she gave me up by choice or was forced to, she did what she could or had to at the time and I was placed with a loving mother, who would do anything for me and loves me to bits.

I never felt anything was missing from my life and to any BM reading this, I am not saying this as anything hurtful, but just how I feel. But as I said the feeling of some BM going through the decision in their head to find me and then finding out that I wasn't on the register of adoptive people to be contacted was niggling at me more and more.

So lately I finally plucked up the courage (it was more a thing of getting time on my own with my Mam to talk to her), I brought this up with my Mam. I was in shock at the relief ( with tears in her eyes) that I had brought it up as she had wanted to say it to me for ages but like me, she didn't know how I would react but she wanted me to know that it was my right to look for my BM if I wanted to and it didn't matter what she felt.
So I was shocked with her reaction, as I really didn't expect her to be so supportive - I know, I know...she would have been told at the time that this may happen & that you should be prepared and assist with this etc...but still at the time, she was so delighted to be adopting me that she would have been happy hearing anything.

So now I begin...what I had originally planned to do when I thought of speaking to her about it was to fill in the form with my details to be contacted by anyone and see what happens next. So I am going to do that and see what happens. She did tell me a little bit more about where I was born and what she knew at the time about my BM, which is very surreal to know.

Why am I posting all this here - cos I just wanna share it as I have read all the different stories here and realise now that I found solace in some of them and well sharing is caring. So apologies for the long winded post. I'll keep you posted and sure as my Mam said "you may be going on a little adventure"...very true.

My story is so similar. On my own adventure now too. Thanks for sharing, good to know there're others going through the same. My reasons for starting a search were the same as yours. Good Luck.

decko11

so so moving

my own adventure started and finished within 24 hours yesterday

a reply from AAI with non identyfying info

a day in GRO

narrowed match to one cert but it wasnt it

tried another match of same surname and maiden name but Dublin N not Dublin S - bingo - found mine ! (wrongly indexed - lady said lots of DUblin are wrongly indexed )

found BM cert 20 mins later


then back to work and 2 in two google searches found BM passed many years ago at a very young age...

highs & lows but more follow up needed - hard to concentrate at work

Ghekko

Sorry to hear that Decko11. Would it be worth contacting the AAI again to 100% confirm you had the correct woman? When I was looking for my husband's mother there were 2 women of same name, same county and similar age, one of whom had died. Thankfully for him his mother was the other one. I emailed TUSLA as the time to ask if it was the deceased lady. They were quick to reply when they realised we were doing our own search but told us that the lady who died wasn't from the correct town.

If it is your birth mother who has passed could you figure out in GRO if she had siblings?

decko11

yes - the non identifying together with my cert and age etc - I'm as sure as i can be unless falsification was at play

even though where i came from (agency / home) was SPG and a certain nursing home - my name wasnt in the register and everything looks legit

i agree though i need to be certain re BM cert - but mother maiden name not so common and i was very careful - despite the butterflies to check and recheck and check again the 3 years within the age (all 4 quaters etc etc)

so unless she (or midwife etc) used a false name of mother - i have the right one

but you are clearly more experienced here then me

Ghekko

I wouldn't say I have any more experience. I learned about tracing from here and a Facebook page - adoption rights alliance. We were spared a trip to the GRO, as the year we started looking the data was online for about 3 weeks - since taken down as it was a data protection breach or something. It was sheer luck that Dh had received his non identifying info around that time. Since then he has met his mum. He did DNA testing and was matched to relatives on his father's side too. Maybe that could be an option for you if you were interested in taking things further to look for birth father. It's hit or miss as to how close relatives would be. Dh got a first cousin match, whereas I did it myself and most were 3/4th cousins. I'd say if you have time to go back to GRO you could find records for birth mums siblings (if any) and see if you can track them. Takes a lot of bloody patience but hopefully you will get answers in time.

robo

Hi decko11 that was one hell of a day you had and to go back to work afterwards must have been tough. As Ghekko said, it might be worth looking further into it with Tulsa (just in case) and then looking at the DNA testing. I know a friend (who is not adopted) did this for her own interest in genealogy and has got some links she knew about but also some she didn't know - some distant relatives.

I was away on holidays but I received just to let me know that they got my application and if I don't heard anything in 4-6 weeks, I can follow up with the tracing agency in Blanchardstown. I will give it the full 6 weeks and then have a think about if I want to pursue it any further. As I said, my main reason was to help my BM or Birth father (if either of them were looking for me) But I think since putting in my application, my curiosity is growing more and more.

I fully understand and respect if neither wish to meet me. I shall update you all as I have any updates as I have found this forum to be very helpful to me (without me even posting in it)

robo

Just an update on my first post - the "4-6 weeks" have passed and I think I can presume that my details on the register didn't match those of someone else who was willing to be contacted (BM or BF or family members) So that is ok.
My main reason for doing that was to make it easier if someone was looking for me.
Now I have to decide whether I wasn't to go down the route of Tusla or not - I don't want to push someone in to meeting me (this is just my opinion and I know it is my right) but back in the 70's, things were different and some people want to let sleeping dogs lie (no dogs were hurt in that comment)
But also, I am thinking there are people out there who are afraid to reach out to me in case I reject them for what they did.
My opinion on adoption is that it is not a bad thing (once done legally) - it brought joy to many families over the years who could not get the treatments now available. But unfortunately one families joy was another families tears in a lot of cases.

I know I am in a fortunate position that I don't feel lost or rejected but in the last few weeks my curiosity has grown more and more. So I hope that my attitude on this post doesn't hurt anyone who is finding it tough. I am only posting my opinion.

Please let me know your opinion if you wish to

Ghekko

Your concerns are totally normal in that you don't want to push for a relationship that may not happen. In my husband's case I don't think his birth mum would have looked for him and she wouldn't have told her other children. Her husband knew and he tried to talk to her over the years but she couldn't talk about it. At a very young age she had been told to go home and forget it ever happened! However when my husband made contact via social worker she was very happy, and nervous of course. So while your birth family may not look for you, siblings may not know about you, it doesn't necessarily mean that your birth mum isn't thinking about you and wondering what happened to you. Take things at your own pace, there are ways to do your own search while waiting on appointment with social worker. Firstly request any non identifying information TUSLA have on you and go from there.