This National Adoption Week, we are sharing stories from women across the Pause network who have children who have been adopted. This blog post was written by Kim, a Pause Practitioner, about her experience of working with a young woman whose two daughters have been adopted.
Olivia* [not her real name] is a care-experienced young person. She experienced a serious mental health crisis during her second pregnancy and was placed in a specialised residential mother and baby mental health provision following her daughter’s birth. Olivia’s mental health continued to decline and, sadly, she had no appropriate support from the father of her children or from her family. Her two children were placed for adoption.
At the time of the adoption order, Olivia was given the opportunity to meet with the adopters. However, as her mental health was in further decline at this time, she did not feel emotionally able to meet with them.
Olivia started working with Pause in 2023, two years after her children were adopted. We worked together in a therapeutic way to focus on her relationship with her children, which was allowed via letterbox contact only. Olivia reflected that she found letterbox contact difficult, due to not having met her children’s adoptive parents. She enjoys spending time outdoors and is fortunate to have a garden. We spent time choosing flowers that reminded her of her children – a beautiful yellow rose and a fragrant pink lily – to plant in her therapeutic garden. Following this work, Olivia felt able to resume letterbox contact with her children.
Reflecting upon her experiences and emotional state at the time, we decided to approach the regional adoption agency, with the hope that they might consider a meeting between Olivia and the adoptive parents. We were incredibly fortunate that the manager at the regional adoption agency demonstrated wonderful empathy in considering our request and approached the adopters.
Together, we prepared for the meeting and, in October this year, Olivia finally met the couple. She reflected:
“I was so nervous before the meeting but I’m so glad I had the opportunity to meet with them both. I had the chance to share my early memories, so they can talk about them with the girls and could share my family medical history. I felt reassured that the girls are both doing really well, and that my eldest daughter still talked about me. I thought she would forget me. At the end of the meeting, they showed me a picture of the girls – I was pleased to see they both looked like me. I cried after the meeting, I was full of emotion but I felt relieved.”
During our time working together, it was evident that, due to her poor mental health, Olivia had not been able to even begin to emotionally process her children’s adoption. Although we had made some phenomenal progress with letter contact and creating Olivia’s Garden, there was a piece missing for Olivia. We were so fortunate that the regional adoption agency responded so empathetically to our request to meet the adopters. I truly believe that in the future Olivia will be able to have a more positive experience of letterbox contact with her children and the adoptive parents will have an appreciated understanding of just how wonderful Olivia is.
Olivia started at university this autumn, studying Mental Health Nursing. She is kind-hearted and I truly believe that she will utilise her experiences to help others.
