Last Contact today

See 'Cut out of their Lives' thread Suzanne

What a dreadful situation you are in! I wonder if you have prepared a book or box of memories which can go with your granddaughter? I hope that it will be possible to keep in touch in some way.
I am sorry, I can't offer much comfort, but send (((hugs))) and for your whole family.
Keep coming on here to have a good rant or to get thoughts off your chest. I hope there will be others in the same position to converse with.

This must be very painful for you and I am sorry your family are going through this sad time.

As "shysal" says, keep things for her so that one day when she seeks out her roots there will be cards, pictures, letters to show her. It is all you can do now. Time to be strong for your son.

I am so sorry you are going through this awful situation

Reading this has made me weep. I am so sorry for all that you are going through. Please know that our hands are being held out to you (((hugs))) though they feel totally inadequate.

My goodness this is so sad . How dreadful for you.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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!