In the past 2 years, Peggy and I have done so much with Two Good Mums. We started out with a podcast, which then became a website, social media accounts we created, and we started to appear at conferences and during covid we did online workshops and presentations. In turn this led me to one of the proudest things I have ever done: releasing my book. I have had the amazing opportunity to attend round tables and create content for adoption agencies and even take part in the first ever birth parent day for National Adoption Week. There have been so many achievements for myself and Peggy since we ..read more

I read a tweet today that made me realise that I don’t remember the exact date I was last officially a Mum to my first-born Son. I know we had a day together, a Sunday, at home where we no doubt played and loved on each other and were utterly oblivious to the events the next day would bring. I had no idea that my entire world was about to shift and fall from under me. I put my son to sleep, unaware that this was our last goodnight. I would never tuck him in again, never kiss him softly on the cheek as he drifted off, and never watch him as he slept soundly in his own cot, that once upon a time ..read more

When I lost my first-born son to forced adoption, I felt so alone in the world. I knew this had happened before to others, but I didn't know anyone personally that had been through it. I felt ashamed, guilt ridden, and utterly lost. After failed assessments, a hellish dive into the depths of depression and despair from losing my son, I was nothing but a shadow of the girl I used to be. Newly 19, younger minded and still naïve to the world, I had been not just a witness but a participant in one of life’s cruellest twists, the loss of a child. Only my child was not lost to the world, he was just ..read more

It’s all too easy for parents who have gone through care proceedings to be forgotten about. When I went through it myself, I didn’t feel like there was anyone on my side. My solicitor was cold and void of empathy. There was no advocate for me. Nobody there to stand in my corner and tell me what the best way forward was. I had a lot of people telling me what I was doing wrong, and a whole lot of nothing in the way of help to rectify this situation. I was barely 18, much younger mentally with previous mental health issues and I’d given up on life the second that my son was removed from my care ..read more

Today is CJ’s birthday. As the years have gone on I’ve felt more and more detached when I send my little birthday emails, but not in a bad way. In a way that has allowed me to move on. I’ve had many debates recently with people who believe I’m brainwashed or complicit with forced adoption purely because I’ve accepted what happened and I’m no longer upset by it. Just this morning someone tweeted me to say I had Stockholm Syndrome simply due to having come to terms with the fact that while it was still a forced adoption, it was absolutely done for the right reasons. Personally, I believe I have ..read more

For the average parent, their child’s first birthday is a joyous occasion. You get to celebrate with them, open presents, eat cake and party food, and play games. More importantly you get to have friends and family join in the festivities because that’s just what is done. Unfortunately, I am not an average Mum. I had to celebrate my first son’s birthday in a Social Services office knowing that our days together were numbered. I brought in a few decorations, a tiny cake and a painted on a smile, but it was not the first birthday I’d dreamed of, more the nightmare version. Holding the painful kn ..read more

When Laura and I set out to record this podcast it was never our intention to malign Social Services (or anyone else) although we knew we couldn’t tell our story without discussing the various social workers who made cameo appearances into our lives. Now that we’ve recorded the final episode, it occurs to me that Social Services featured more than we intended, and it’s worth capturing the themes that we inadvertently uncovered. What initially stands out is that our experience of individual social workers was, in the main, positive, and what’s striking is Laura’s comment that ‘the process could ..read more

I don’t think I could ever adequately describe what losing CJ was like for me. It is physically impossible to explain the feeling you have when something awful happens to your child and you are suspected of being to blame for it, for hurting a child that you know you would die for. There has never and will never be a single bone in my body that would ever harm any child, let alone my own. I used to be a natural with children, I loved them. Being a Mum felt like the most normal thing in the world to me once upon a time. It’s something that I wanted so badly, yet never knew how wrong it could go ..read more

In Episode 8 I talk about going back to university where I learned that mothers who lose a child to adoption become hidden and hard to reach, and under-researched. What little research there is consistently conveys their depth of loss and shame, and the subsequent physical and mental health problems they suffer. Many experience a major illness or injury post-adoption, or other chronic health problems such as: migraine, obesity, asthma, eczema, self-neglect, unexplained abdominal pain, insomnia, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s quite a list! Their grief is unique and ..read more

When I said goodbye to CJ, and despite my Sister saying it wasn’t a goodbye it was a ‘see you later’, I had to treat it like I may never see him again. So many things could have happened for that to be a possible outcome, and we knew he would never come home. We said goodbye to CJ on the day before my 19th birthday. I held it together outwardly until we had our final hugs. I had a brief ‘private’ moment with him, which was really me trying to say a lifetime worth of things to him in the space of a minute while everyone acted like they couldn’t hear me. Two halves of me met at that moment. One ..read more