I was born in June 1974 and was adopted when I was 4 days old. My adoption was prearranged, an open adoption, something that could be done in those days. My adoptive parents had friends who knew of a family whose young daughter was pregnant. It had been decided that once the baby was born it should be adopted, and so my parents filed for my adoption.

My parents already had a blood daughter, my sister, who was four years old. We had an idyllic upbringing in the West Sussex countryside. I have memories of a childhood that was loving and homely, free and exciting. Days spent building camps in the woods, walking on my own down the lane to a friends, or keeping an eye on our little stall at the end of the drive where we sold produce we had grown were the norm.

I must have been told from an early age that I was adopted as I can’t remember there ever being a day that I was told. I’m thankful to my parents for that. I do remember a chat we had when I was about nine where we talked about my birth mother, why they had adopted me, that my birth family were from a little fishing village in Fife, Scotland, and the fact that my birth mother, at the age of 15, was just a child herself when she gave birth to me. They told me that my birth mother had handed me over to them herself in the hospital and that they had thought this was a very brave thing to do.

Around the time of starting secondary school I started to think about being adopted more and more. Although I had a wonderful upbringing and was very much loved and supported I felt a little like the black sheep of the family. My older sister did very well at school and was well behaved, whereas I was the opposite. I struggled in my lessons and always seemed to find trouble. I felt like I was letting my parents down and they might regret adopting me. I had fantasies about my birth mother and at one point I convinced myself that my drama teacher was in fact my birth mother. I thought she must have tracked me down and got the teaching job just to be near me, silly really. This sort of thing happened more and more as I grew older. I’d wonder if my birth mother was looking for me, if I had passed her in the street without knowing, if I looked like her etc etc. Every birthday I’d think about her and wonder if she was thinking of me.

When I left school I felt even more of a need for belongingness, to feel some acceptance. I became obsessed with a piece of paper that my parents had given me which had information on it about my birth mother. It told me that she was one of seven daughters, and that she liked playing football, and liked skiing. I carried this thinning bit of paper around in my pocket everywhere until finally it was lost in the washing machine. I was absolutely distraught that I’d lost it. I really wanted to trace my birth family but I was fearful that my parents would feel I was rejecting them, so I put it off.

I was 23 when I eventually told my parents I wanted to trace my birth mother. They were very good about it and told me they always understood this might be something I’d want to do. They said they would do all they could to help and contacted people that had links to my birth family, but we had no joy. I kept going though because I knew that whether it be on my own, or with the help of a private detective, I had to trace them.

A few years later I went to the Family Records Centre in Islington, London. I had no clue what I was doing but I had a little information and lots of determination. When I arrived a man came up to me and asked if he could help. I told him I was looking for records for Scotland. I remember him telling me I was lucky because all the records for Scotland were on the computer. He pointed my in the direction of a room away from the rows of books and off I went with my notepad and pen and settled myself behind one of the screens.

I knew my birth mothers surname, and that she had got married, so I looked into this first. I searched her surname for marriages in Fife from a few years after I was born. After a while I had a few new surnames to work on. I then used each of these names to search for births and eventually I’d whittled down the list to just one person. The next task was to go through the electoral register to try and find an address. I searched and searched but couldn’t find her in the area of Fife so she was either dead, had remarried, or had moved away. I felt a little disheartened but then realised I might have found addresses for who I thought might be my grandmother, and someone I thought could be a sister. I scribbled down the address and took myself home.

That evening I agonised over writing a letter, and who to write to. I decided against contacting a sister as she might not know of my existence and I didn’t want to cause any upset, so it had to be who I thought might be my grandmother. I worried about this because I knew my birth mothers parents had been upset by their daughters pregnancy. If I was writing to my grandmother would she be happy to receive my letter? And would she pass it on to my mother if she could? I had no way of knowing if my letter would ever reach my birth mother, but what did I have to lose? I wrote the letter, gave it a kiss, popped it in the post box, and hoped for the best.

A couple of days later there on my doormat was a pale blue envelope addressed to me. I remember crouching on the floor staring at it, my heart racing. I was saying, “Oh my god, oh my god” over and over as my shaky hands opened the envelope. “At long last my prayers have been answered….” were the first words my birth mother wrote to me. She had included a couple of photographs, and although she was blonde, I could see a resemblance. I looked at these photos in disbelief and through tears. I had done it!

I wrote back and included a photograph of myself and my email address. We exchanged emails over the next couple of weeks and arranged our first meeting to be the day after Mothers Day. I discovered that although my birth mother and father did not stay together they did used to bump in to one another and often talk about me together. Each of them had gone on to get married and have their own families. My mother had six children, and my father had three children from his first marriage, and then two more from his second marriage. I was pretty overwhelmed at how big my birth family was. My parents seemed pleased that I’d found my birth parents,  although one thing I remember my mum saying was that she’d be upset if I called my birth mother mum.

Our first meeting was at the home of the family that had looked after my birth mother when she was pregnant with me. It was the place she’d last seen me, and the place where we would be reunited. I took 26 roses to give to her, one for each year we had been apart. When we first saw each other we hugged and cried, and hugged and cried some more. We drank champagne and talked and talked and talked. I was on an absolute high. She told me it had not been easy to give me up for adoption, among other things she said it had affected her health, and I think that is the same for me. I believe that not being brought up by my birth mother affected me from the moment I left her arms.

I later went up to Scotland to visit my birth father, his family, my grandmothers, my siblings on both sides, and various aunts and uncles. The whole trip was an emotional rollercoaster but I got on well with them all, and they were as happy to see me as I was to see them.

When I had my first child I often thought about the adoption. When I held my new baby in my arms I tried to imagine what it would be like to hand him over to someone else knowing I might never see him again. I often cried with sadness for what my birth mother had to go through, but sometimes my tears were with happiness because I knew that my son would grow up with his birth mother and never have to fill his head with thoughts of where he’d come from, and all the “what if’s”.

My children are 11 and 8 now have grown up knowing about my family situation. I know it must be difficult at times for my parents, sister and nieces to have my children speak of their other grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, but hopefully they understand they are no more special than they are. The family I grew up with are my real family, and with a few hiccups along the way they helped me grow into the person I am today.

I have the utmost respect for my birth mother for doing what she did. And also for all mothers and fathers that have had to let go of a child when the circumstances haven’t been right for them to be a parent. I also have a great respect for those who adopt. It can’t be easy bringing up an adopted child knowing they might want to trace their family at some point. While I have never felt any resentment towards my birth mother and family, and I understand why I was adopted, and had wonderful adoptive parents, I still have had feelings of abandonment, and feelings of not fitting. I’d like to say that being adopted never bothered me but it did, and still does today.

I had the romantic notion that being reunited would cure my birth mother and I from our troubles, but the reality is that the experiences and feelings we had before our reunion are buried too deep in our souls. We found each other and with that found some peace, but we may never truly heal. Saying that I believe my adoption to be a hugely successful one. Yes, there have been turbulent times, but this can happen in a family related by blood. I was brought up by the most wonderful parents who are generous, kind, loving and supportive. To them I am their daughter and to me they are my parents and that is that.