Last Contact today

That is their claim, but if they have as little to go of as the FC did I hope they will have a problem proving it. Had there been a problem I would not have gone as far as I did to help.

What criminal case? Was the GC attacked?

Thank you
Up until This last week I have felt despondent. The warmth show me has been very helpful. It is amazing what a few kind words can do when you think you are in a very dark place. As from our last contact, the only way must be up. I just hope that somehow I reach the top of this very deep hole by the time I may be found again.
I have some lovely work colleagues who I could not have survived this long without. The loss of a grandchild is so very hard to understand and I feel humbled by the generosity given to me.
I managed to get another few lines of my final letter written today. I found a poem which I have slightly changed to include her adopting mums name. I have not had letter box officially confirmed. There is a very very remote chance of face to face once a year depending on what they decide after the criminal case is heard. Until then I don't want to get my hopes up.
Hopefully in time to come I can help others as I have been helped. I am not sure where the last 18'years have gone, as my youngest is 18 at the end of the month, I can only hope the next 18 go as fast. Just have to stay strong to survive to 70! Mum is always so fond of saying only the good die young. Cheerful should she is, that's why she reckons she will make it to a 100! If she does she too may still see her great grand child again! Something to live for she says! Love my Mum xx

Suzanne, I also have just read your post and it just broke my heart. I do not know what to say and cannot begin to know what you are going through. No words could possibly convey to you how sorry I am that you are going through this. Your pain must be unbearable and all I can say is I hope that some how you find a way through all this sorrow. I just send my love to you.xx.

Suzanne I have only just seen your post, I am so sorry that you are going through this.

Suzanne I would send you virtual flowers, but that couldn't begin to touch what you must be feeling.

I really hope your son can get through this.

It's just incredible that this can happen in this day and age. That a child can be actually adopted, with such finality, away from its rightful family without the consent of the remaining blood relatives, who still love the child. Even a grandmother!!!

Something is totally wrong there. It's barbaric.

Thankyou everyone. I fought tooth and nail to keep her, remortgaged and all to no avail. I have plans B-Z, but if I am honest I do not know if any are wise. She will be given the warped SS story and it will be embedded, through no fault of her adopting parents. It is their responsibility to give her the information. Human nature dictates this may not be in a way to promote us, rather than to protect them and their future interest. I was buoyed by the story of the child who felt comfortable inviting his birth mother to his wedding. I have to get back to my cup is almost full person, though not sure how, it is all too soon at the moment. I cannot isolate myself in my dark cupboard forever. Reading a letter left me by my Dad, I bring out on bad days, he says not to hate or let bitterness rule my life. Possibly in reference to my teenage years and my parents divorce. It taught me such valuable life lessons in retrospect. Though nothing that really helps me with this.
This anniversary as with the death of my father, my rock, will hopefully ease in time. October 5, January 26 and March 13, so glad it was not a Friday!

What can I say? Forced adoptions are so hard and, as Nightowl said, ought to re-evaluated

Suzanne I like the other Gransnetters feel for you at this awful time, I want to weep and shout 'it's not fair'.

I don't know how things will work out for you, but the one thing I do know is that there is always someone on Gransnet who will listen and respond to you.

I have found Gransnet a great comfort and I hope in time in some way we will help you to come through this terrible trauma.

I'm so sorry you are going through this Suzanne. The suggestions about letters, memory boxes are good ones but I'm afraid any communication with the adoptive parents will be strictly controlled by Children's Services. These situations make me very sad. I hope one day this drive for forced adoptions will be re-evaluated but I fear it won't be anytime soon, and too late to help Suzanne and others in similar situations.

Dear Suzanne please forgive last nights post. I did not mean to cause you any more distress than you are obviously already suffering and I did not mean to imply in any way that you were not doing enough to keep your grandchild.

Yes jane perhaps you are right but it's terribly sad.

Gilly perhaps it's a case of only fighting battles that you have a good chance of winning, and avoiding collateral damage?

Perhaps it's just me but many of these messages (kind as they are) seem to have a "you just have to accept it" kind of theme running through them. Well I couldn't accept it, not ever.

I obviously cannot put myself in the place of Suzanne and I do not know the reasons why SS in their infinite wisdom have decided against letting the little girl stay in the folds of her biological family but I do think that SS sometimes get the bit between their teeth and cannot be made to look wrong. I also know that once someone has made their decision (right or wrong) they are extremely reluctant to change their mind which would be seen as backing down.

If it were me I would fight to my last breath before I let my DGC be adopted outside the family that love and cherish them.

I am not sue the SS always act in the child's best interest and I think they can be very easily fooled by people who have a nasty agenda. I don't know how to deal with that but I am sure it happens.

Please keep in mind that when she is older she may well try to contact you.

If you do write that letter, and why not, perhaps do it in two parts, one with the message to the adoptive parents and one for your GD when she is old enough to read. I would suggest adding you name and address on separate paper and then if the SS don't want them to know who you are or where you live they can take out that part. Oh, and just sign Garn/Grandma/Nan or whatever.

Suzanne I am so very sorry this has happened to you

Elegran I think Suzanne probably has to tread very carefully. A similar thing happened to someone I know. Her son died when his child was 3 months old. At first, my acquaintance looked after her grandson at weekends and other times. She had him all over Christmas.
Then the mother got a new partner who was into drugs, and shall we say there was a child protection issue too.
The little boy was adopted, and my acquaintance is allowed no contact whatsoever, although she and her son were blmeless, and the grandson is the only connection she has with her dead son.

She is making a memory book in the hope that her GS will find his other family when he grows up. She wouldn't risk alienating SS.
I know SS have to act in the child's best interests, but the effects sometimes are very difficult indeed.

Is it at all possible for you to send a letter to the adoptive parents explaining that you are not the monsters you may seem to be, detailing the reasons you did not get the custody you hoped for, and asking them to please not influence the child to against you? Don't be critical of the judgment to let them adopt her, just sad that you cannot have her.

If you say that you realise that she must come first, and you are sure that they agree with that and you hope that they will all form a happy family, but you do not want her to believe in the future that you did not have her welfare at heart, then surely they will speak of you as family who would have kept her, but were not able to?

Would the adoption authorites pass on such a letter, perhaps unsealed so that they can read it too and know that it is not written to cause trouble?

How old is she Suzanne? I just wondered how easy it will be for her to understand what is happening. I cannot imagine anything worse for a child than to be removed from all they know and love.

Such a sad tale. ((hugs)) for you.

This may not help much now, but a friend of my son was adopted when a baby. He looked for, and found his birth mother (she didn't know who his father was!) as soon as his was eighteen. Last week he married his partner of five years. Both his adopted parents and his birth mother were at the wedding and get on well - and his little boy has three grandmothers.
These days children know they're adopted and it's easier to find birth parents. If she knows you're all receptive, I'm sure she'll come looking one day.

Thank you for your kind messages, I just need to be patient for a while longer. See what comes after the summers fiasco . Will need to regroup and see what we can do. My GD is now lost forever, contact went well in that I didn't burst into tears and rant! like I did after the final hearing.
If she hadn't been my first maybe....Even though I didn't much like my Dads parents, I would never have wanted to have never known them. We we planning to give our new home a name. just have to think of something relevant. Two boxes are being prepared, only for her after the papers are signed and one for us. Just hope she gets to see things growing up and not all at the end when a very nasty impression of us may have already formed.

My heart goes out to you SuzanneL60 I don't know what to say, except I am thinking of you, ((hugs))

I am crying reading your post for the third time SuzanneL60.

I don't know what to say.

Could you (at this very late stage) contact one of the big newspapers and go public? I am clutching at straws for you. What about other grandparents who have "used" the media in this way? I honestly don't know.

I can't imagine how you must feel. Keep in contact with Gransnet there is a lot of support to be had. X

So sorry for you. I cannot imagine what you are going through. Hopefully other Grans on GN can give you support. X