Black Sheep Sweet Dreams: Adoption Journal

By Black Sheep

This is an honest, funny, and poignant portrayal of an adoption journey. It’s eye-opening and enlightening. Read an invaluable resource for anyone considering tracing their birth parents, specifically a birth mother. Follow Black Sheep as she navigates the twists, turns, and bumps in the road to achieve her goal—to reunite with her birth mother after over forty years.

Enjoy a good belly laugh and possibly a cry with the promise that you will not regret reading this book. Friends admit to crying and laughing out loud in equal measure despite already knowing the tale. Live it with her. Be drawn into her world as she guides you step by step toward success. All adopted people have a missing piece of the jigsaw to find and every right in the world to find it too! Buckle up, grab your tissues, and settle in for what will prove to be a pretty bumpy ride.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Nov 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483458595

Book preview

Author

SheepFamilybw.jpg

Getting Started

As an adopted person you should register with The Adoption Contact Register. Add yourself to express an interest in finding a birth relative. You have options on this registration and need to think through them very carefully. The option I chose was to Show an interest in Contact with ONE specific person, my Birth Mother. That way I knew my search would remain focused on just finding her.

If you choose the option to have contact with ANY birth relative, you may find others listed who know about you and want contact. Be aware that you need to start where you came from, half siblings for example have their own issues about your existence that may not be positive? Just my cynical view and for self-preservation, I advise caution in selecting this option. You can always amend your option at a later date.

You can also use the Contact Register to say you don’t want to be contacted. Defeats the object here but so you know.

From the age of 18 you can add yourself to the Adoption Contact Register provided your birth or adoption was registered with the General Register Office. All you need are the following:

• your ORIGINAL birth name (the name given at Birth, not the name given by your Adoptive parents)

• your date of birth

• the full name (s) of your birth mother (and birth father if known)

Read the guidance notes available before completing the form. There is a fee of £15

Link to Contact Register Form: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/application-for-an-adopted-person-to-apply-for-entry-onto-part-1-of-the-adoption-contact-register

If you are like many and don’t have your birth records: You can apply to get your birth records. Please note: If you were adopted outside England or Wales, you need to contact the General Register Office in the country where you were adopted.

Application Form for Birth Records within UK

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/application-or-access-

to-birth-records

Link to Application Form for your Birth Records outside UK

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/application-or-access-

to-birth-records-outside-england-and-wales

Post Forms to: Adoptions section, Room C202, General Register Office, Trafalgar Rd

Southport PR8 2HH or Fax to 0151 471 4755

Follow this link for other specific postal addresses for your form

http://www.ukbirth-adoptionregister.com/resources.php

Be aware, if you were adopted before 1975 you’ll be advised you need to attend a counselling session with an approved adoption advisor. If you choose to take assistance from your local authority, you will already be assigned someone to do this. Personally I think this should be YOUR personal choice so if you don’t wish to go the Social Services route (and from my experience, in my story you will see why I suggest you think twice), then simply don’t!

Your Journey, Your choice…my mantra running throughout this process so don’t forget it!!

Although the purpose of this book is to equip you with the personal tools to trace your Birth Mother yourself, I have to show the other side of the process to some degree. So if you feel you do need assistance this is probably not the site for you. Therefore if you baulk at your own instincts and feel in any way you want to step off the roller coaster and grab a hand to hold then try an Intermediary Agency.

I am not going to list these agencies as again it defeats the purpose of my book but they are out there, some vary in their charges, from around £100 to up to £500 and you need to be certain the result will be the end of your journey. Please note AAA NORCAP are no longer operating…Good job I didn’t pass over the £500 they wanted to do the job I did for myself then eh!?

When an intermediary agency finds a person, you can only contact them if they agree to it…My major bug bear and a huge Con (as appose to a Pro of course, not a rip off! -although in some cases perhaps this isn’t far off the mark) is that if they don’t agree, the agency won’t tell you their name (although we assume we know this!) or exact whereabouts, but they might be able to share some information, like:

• their domestic or family circumstances

• their general health and well-being

As far as I am concerned this is all a bit vague and again suggests that actually your search may yield fruit that you are then unable to taste?? Is there a point in risking that outcome?…surely more frustrating than not finding your Birth Mother at all in the first place!

The other useful thing you should do, if you do not have this already. Order a copy of your original Birth certificate. This may hold vital clues to assist you in your search. For me, it confirmed my Birth Mother’s occupation at the time of my birth and it may have their actual date of birth.

Follow this link for your Birth Certificate:

https://www.gov.uk/order-copy-birth-death-marriage-certificate

Once you have followed Step 1 come back to me…………..

HistoricalfactsBW.jpg

Historical Facts - The History and

Facts Surrounding your Adoption

Before I start, just a note. I meant to say in Step 1…a word of caution; It is really tempting to jump into this with both feet and past experience and speaking to others has shown this is fool hardy and destructive all round. Promise me for now you will resist the Facebook Search Temptation (from here-on known as FBST). I myself pretty much stalked someone on Facebook (metaphorically, privately and in my head, not actually but you know what I mean! I convinced myself this woman was my Birth Mother, tracked her families’ posts, pictures and damn near drove myself nuts squeezing everything about her into the mould of who I believed to be the right person.

Sadly after some 9 months or so this person was proven to be the WRONG person! In My Journey Diary you will laugh about the tale but for now BE WARNED…FBST IS OFF LIMITS, at least for the time being. Leave FBST alone until I tell you it’s safe to do so! Same goes for LinkedIn and any other social media platform for now.

So now you are or should be equipped with the following:

1) Your Original Birth Certificate

2) Confirmation of your Interest to be contacted on the Adoption Contact Register

3) Hopefully, a bit more courage building within you……

4) You may also have come across your Adoption Certificate. If it’s tricky asking for this from your adoptive parent, apply for a replacement adoption certificate here

https://www.ukonlinecertificate.co.uk/Adoption_Certificate_18_

certificate.php

So next we need to go backwards and see what history we can actually use to help us. You would be amazed the bits of information you always felt were of little or no consequence but now have a real value

The first thing to focus on is what information ‘came with you’ i.e. Do you know if you had siblings? Did your Birth Mother live overseas? Which town were you born in, which hospital? Much of this information could be in any paperwork your Adoptive parent has given you many years ago. Scour through it now.

My own search lead me to look into the following Historical Facts:

My birth mother had another child. Who was that child? How old? Her occupation was a Seamstress- Where? Who for and what did she make?

Your initial discussions with anyone in the Social Services will have shown you that there’s a mountain of paperwork ‘somewhere’ about YOU!! This paperwork was drawn up at the point of your Adoptive parents applying to adopt a child way back when. Your ‘Adoption File’ you may already have from the Social Worker but there is more out there, trust me, a whole heap more! It will likely be at one of the many local authority councils from which your adoption took place. In my case Warwickshire council had the main file and apparently 22 letters were needed to obtain it (not entirely convinced of this but nevertheless it appeared). PACT may have the additional information as they did my second file so tell (don’t ask!) your council to get hold of any paperwork they can pertaining to your adoption. It’s yours!

Please be aware also that it is written without the expectation that the adoptee (you) would EVER read it, so it can seem blunt and cold but it is a ‘professional opinion’ NOT fact in many cases and NOT sugar coated.

Towards the end of my search I obtained much of the information pertaining to my actual adoption BUT the initial documents will outline and detail the following, and some of it may hurt you so be aware, (deep breaths!) this isn’t necessarily going to be a fairy tale people, but warts and all, black and white stuff that is REAL and maybe not too nice.

Write these questions in a little book as you go along and scribble answers as you find them, I still have mine from day one and its helpful I promise.

The kind of information you are looking for in this file and in the resources listed below is:

What was the relationship between my biological parents?

Did she marry? Genes Reunited have all this and more if you follow a logical search, If so look for who she married and when. Marriage certificates can be obtained as can marriage records fairly easily

Were there Siblings, older or younger, dead or alive?

When were the siblings born and where was their birth registered, i.e. which District?

Last known addresses or contact details. Look at the Birth certificate or adoption application forms. Someone lives there now unless it’s raised to the ground but that’s unlikely.

Work Backwards….Birth Mother’s Date of Birth may only be available to you as a year but it’s helpful anyway. Find her simply on Genes Reunited using the year and full name, assuming you have it.

Were you placed in the city/town of your birth, or did you move away?

Resources open to you are the likes of:

Genes Reunited www.genesreunited.co.uk

(a favourite)

Ancestory.com - www.ancestry.co.uk

192. com (invaluable) - www.192.com

Find my Past - www.findmypast.co.uk

The National Archives - www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

So in summary and to outline where I was at this point in my own search:

I knew my BM date of birth and popped it into Genes Reunited…unhelpful as she was not born in this country but came here in the mid 60’s! Bad News! The good news was all her children were born here! So I traced from the scant info I had about a sibling, the siblings’ place of registration and the exact date of birth for the sibling. Then I could see the District in which they were registered. Same as me! With your BM full name at the time of YOUR birth you will see yourself registered in Genes Reunited as child of your BM by her Maiden name so verify the correct record. Marriage records lead to show me two marriages, so I again could cross reference the district where the marriages were registered and determine the county in which she lived at the latest date recorded. At this stage Genes Reunited is still free if you are savvy. If not, pay, it’s worth it in any case.

Then I knew that the siblings born in the UK could potentially be found in the marriage records if male as kept the same surname. From here it’s important to keep notes as trust me, its gets confusing. I found about 20 siblings and worked through the list until the cross references matched. i.e., Correct Maiden name for their Birth Mother matched Date of Birth for Birth Mother matched Sibling District of Registration etc. You will do a couple and then fly through, get the hang of it in no time.

Now I had another name to Google! Hurrah! Seriously it all adds up to the end result, keep the faith and keep the focus.

Now please remember Google is not God but it is a wonderful tool for digging. The watchword is DIG! …DIG DIG DIG! And when you finish digging? DIG some more!

WalkyourPathboardBW.jpg

Introduction to My Journey

Ok so you have probably by now enlisted some assistance from your local council workers at least to get hold of your Adoption file for you. At the point of receipt you need to take a really deep breath and prepare yourself to digest the information. I am going to start writing My Journey based on my own experience rather than tips and instructions. I think this will be easier to digest and also certainly easier to write…so let me take you back to where I began my search.

As a 40 something mum (yes really!) of a crazy but beautiful little girl, my need to trace my birthmother became more pressing. I had attempted a search at the age of 18 driven out of angst (you know, boy troubles, not allowed to smoke in my room etc.) But as luck would have it I failed miserably but what I did find was interesting nevertheless…

My adoptive Guardian (an Uncle) still lives in the area where I was born and raised in the early part of my life. As did my lovely grandparents. So I was shipped off to unwind and stay with them for a time in the vain hope my teenage angst would be lessened. As it happened, I found a new boyfriend (100% unsuitable in anyone’s eyes). I bought a new horrific Shell suit and generally remained wound up like a spring!

My 18 year old head decided to add to my stress by believing the time was right to look into the past. Big mistake. Never do this if you’re in a dark place to begin with Promise me!!?!

Anyway my Uncle took me on a trail of the last known addresses I had in my thin folder of papers.

Suffice it to say the search did nothing for my moods, yielded no fruit and left me feeling empty and useless. Something told me to leave this alone for now’ so that is what I did…until I knew the time was right.

Most of you will find the most difficult time in your calendar year is your birthday….in my case I had a double whammy growing up, as my birthday happens to be Christmas Day!…..

In this book I hope you will find inspiration and courage to embark on what will be the rollercoaster ride of your life. We are adoptees and we have the right to know where we are from and those who say different clearly aren’t adopted right?? So People go with your heart, regret nothing but seek the answers you need as I did…I promise to outline the whole journey with humour and candour in equal measure.

Watching Long Lost family last night and as usual tears welled up and spilled down my face. I am not alone in that but for me watching it now differs so much from the emotions of watching it a few years back. Mindful of how pear-shaped the outcome could be I want to warn you, it’s not a journey to take if you are struggling with anything in your life at the same time. So if you have an unresolved family issue or are recovering from illness, divorce or anything else stressful please put this trip on hold until all in your world is peachy. Promise me you will, as you will regret searching with too much going on in your life to contend with.

In my case, my support network was in place. Good long term friends, my husband and those who knew me of old were all primed and on standby to pick me up if I faltered and offer a shoulder to lean on or cry on if needs be. I even prepped my GP. :-) Yes I did! I never suffer emotional depression (only the usual self-doubt or dips at certain times of life, i.e. divorce or bereavement) but never actually need medication. However, this was a new experience and no one can know how it will affect you or those around you so I decided if I dipped to the point of needing medical help then it made sense that my lovely family GP was forewarned as in forearmed!! He actually served as a great support along the way so it’s worth mentioning your plans to your GP if you can.

The most important thing to remember is Patience…there will be so many false starts and inevitable disappointments that you will often feel like throwing in the towel. Whatever the outcome you need to get to the end of the road so have your wits about you, draw on your inner strength and lean on those you trust and you will get there…

blacksheepofthefamilyBW.jpg

Once Upon a Time

It’s quite hard to actually get your head round how far you have come until you get a chance to stop and look to the sky and say

OMG actually that was one hell of a ride and I survived

..Yes I am ready to amuse, amaze and bore you (hopefully not) in equal measure. Be assured NOTHING is left out or made up and this journey is unique to me. I will however tweak names to protect the innocent, or not so, depending on your point of view.

At this point I want to explain my name Black Sheep Sweet Dreams

You see I am the Black Sheep of the family, in more ways than one. Not only am I of Caribbean decent (British born), but my adoptive family are pure White British, hence the irony of the name. In essence even if I weren’t Black (not coloured, Brown or any other nonsense PC term) I would still be the Black Sheep of the family. They are all introvert, shy people. Highly intellectual with degrees and Ology’s oozing from every pore. Me? I am out there, in your face, speak as I find, creative and arty, reasonably intellectual but not Mensa and also a tiny bit naughty…Rules are made to be broken in my book! I’ve loads of friends from all over the world, am blessed with more than my fair share of really special friends who I know would open their arms and welcome me if I needed a hug. Some amazing people came along with me on my journey and I am grateful to each one of them for their support and patience. I am confident, believe laughter, coupled with wine and a good friend, can cure all. I am not a person to cross - if I see an injustice I am all over it like Calamine over the Pox! But I have a heart as soft as the centre of those horrid little coffee Revels