A Long and Winding Path to Fatherhood

It was our boy’s birthday earlier this month. And it’s also an anniversary of more than just his birth for us… 

Of course, as we adopted him we weren’t there for his arrival in the world. We have the facts and figures: hospital name, time of day, his weight at birth. But we don’t have photos, or memories of holding him as the tiniest bundle in our arms.  

A few years later though, on that very same date, we took a trip to London, to the Coram Campus in Bloomsbury as we had been invited there to attend an adoption ‘event’. 

Initially we thought it would be like those we’d seen on screen, like in the movie ‘Instant Family’ or TV shows ‘Lost Boys and Fairies’ and ‘Trying’, where wannabe adopters attend a matching event, meeting and interacting with kids who need new forever families. 

But no, it wasn’t that. We had questions about what it would be instead, only our social worker did too: this was the first time she’d had adopters invited, so she was as curious – and in the dark – as we were. We whipped up a one-page ‘CV’ about us to print out and take along, pulling all the really good bits (and photos!) from the many formats our information was captured in at that point, such as the 33-page report about us which took us through panel approval, and our profile on the online matching service LinkMaker.

What it turned out to be was a collection of social workers from adoption agencies up and down the country who had Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic kids waiting, and a tea-sipping, milling-about crowd of parents looking to adopt from these groups. 

Marcus’s smile shone out of his profile photo on the table, his cloud of hair framing those beautiful eyes and tiny dimples. 

When I glanced at his birth date, I said, “Oh, it’s his birthday today!” 

The social worker behind his table had been talking to one prospective adopter for so long that a queue had formed before her, but on hearing me she looked over and smiled as soon as she saw whose profile we had picked up, saying “He’s my little star!” 

And so it could be said that the creation of our family also harks from that date, the very same that our son came into the world a handful of years before. It’s a wonderful symmetry, and a moment that felt a little bit magical on that typically grey and rainy autumn day in London. 

But the reality is that we totally forget that bit every year now: it’s our child’s birthday, and that is quite something! There’s the excitement in the build-up, the daily countdown to party day, the high energy of the event itself and the tricky wind-down after, plus the presents to open, and of course the day itself, which rarely coincides with a convenient weekend day for a group party, with more anticipation, presents, cake and emotion. 

I’ll admit it: it’s a bit of relief when it’s over. Planning starts at the end of the school summer holidays, and when it’s done it’s suddenly half term and Halloween. From a parenting perspective, it’s a LOT. The joy he gets from being celebrated for just being him though – that makes it all feel worthwhile. 

Letterbox is a part of most people’s adoption story. It’s the system which facilitates an exchange of letters and other things like drawings, photos and cards, between adopters and birth parents, on behalf of the adopted child. It’s administered by social workers, and fully anonymised. 

For myself as an adoptive mum, it’s a twice-yearly commitment to write a letter and attempt to provide an update to our child’s birth family on how he’s doing, what he’s achieving, and generally that he is happy and healthy. 

It’s a hard letter to write. Every single time. I battle with providing reassurance that he is well loved and taken care of, while not trying to suggest we are taking better care of him than they ever could. I share milestones in his life to let them know he is growing and developing well, while appreciating that this could also serve to highlight all that they are missing to those no longer in his day-to-day life. 

In normal circumstances, I find it very easy to talk about my child, to tell everyone I know all about his latest foibles, games, obsessions and achievements. I am a proud parent, and share these kinds of things with almost everyone I talk to. But when it comes to sharing this information with the other people who love my child as much as we do, it enters another space.

To maintain the required level of confidentiality, no locations or dates or details at all are included, and so the whole thing lacks nuance, and the personal element. This all translates into a letter which often sounds to me like I’ve written it for a child, rather than simply about one. There is no room for humour or irony – and crucially, I came to realise when I interrogated why this letter is so difficult to write – any kind of connection between the writer and recipient. We have never met, and our only common ground is a child who is no longer the infant they remember, and we never knew our growing child to be. 

To try and help with these letters, I have read around what birth families have said they enjoy hearing, or want to know more about. First and foremost, the consistent arrival of the letters confirms in itself that the recent news story they might have heard about the tragic accident suffered by, for example, an eight-and-a-half year old girl with red-gold hair is not their child. The prevailing thinking is that you can never say that the child is safe, well, taken care of and settled too many times, so this is something I start and end my letters with every time. In one article I read a birth mum noted that when she read the words “how are you?” in a letterbox letter she had felt that the writer really meant this as an enquiry and cared about the answer, so even though I have never met them, I made sure to include this kind of question and language in my next letter. 

The letters sound repetitive though. As much as daily life with our son is ever-changing, sharing six months of updates and information turns out to be both daunting in its huge scope, and hard to pinpoint things of real importance and worthy of sharing when I sit down to do it. I’ve recently started to make a note of things I think will be good to include when they happen, to make sure I don’t forget them, and to give me a headstart on the next letter – even when it’s as much as five-and-a-half months away yet. 

I also question myself about how much I am willing to give in these letters. Do I feel reticent to share too much, to truly share our child with them? In adoption, the fact that there are other people out there who love our child as their own as much as we do is the very starting point, and ever-present thereafter. But while they remain like shadowy, flat figures written about on forms, perhaps featuring in a few bad photos, its easier to push them to the fringes of busy family life. Once I’m writing a letter directly to them, they move closer and into the light. They take on the full three dimensions and become parents again, wanting nothing more than to know everything they possibly can about this child. It’s hard sometimes, as an adopter, to be selfless and generous with my child. After all, he’s my child. Not only my child, but I am his loving, protective, nurturing and caring mother. Being able to share that most important of roles with someone else is not easy. 

By questioning myself about this though, I go back over the letters and ask myself if I could share a bit more here, bring this section alive a bit more with some further info, and try my very best to edit myself and challenge my own level of protectiveness as his parent. I’m not sure I am very successful at it, but at least I try. Maybe, just maybe, the next letter will come out sounding a bit less repetitive though, and perhaps even be a bit easier to write… 

Sunday 28 June 2026: the momentous date when our book, our story launched out into the big wide world! 

Why was it a Sunday? I don’t know, my publishers told me that was the date, generated by an automated timeline I’m sure, and despite a few minor threats of delays all the deadlines were met and out it came, right on schedule.

The build-up was quite exciting. There were pre-orders by lovely friends and family across a range of booksellers – and countries too. There was the website creation and go-live, which I could then send to friends and family, and add to our social media profile. Seeing the ebook manuscript on my own Kindle and phone app was quite a moment too. 

Then the boxes arrived… 

Our book, right here in our hands. It was quite a moment! 

Watching our son pick up a copy, sit back on the sofa and flick through it was nothing short of magical. He was very concerned to make sure people knew that his name had been changed: he asked us to make sure his Grandad knew ‘about Marcus’. We assured him that everybody definitely knew this, and everybody we know who reads it will know that it’s him! 

Once the book was available for instant purchase, we set about sending “book launch announcement” emails to adoption agencies and support organisations. This is one of our core audiences: professionals who work in adoption, who continue their reading and research and staying up to date with adoption narratives in all formats as part of the ongoing professional development. 

Crucially, these individuals and their organisations also curate reading lists for wannabe adopters – the other half of our primary audience. If the agencies and organisations like it, they will recommend it, and this is definitely how we started our search when we wanted to know a bit more or felt we hadn’t read anything like this for a while. 

It was a shot in the dark, sending messages out into the ether, and unlike social media we didn’t get to see or hear any tangible response in the short term. This made us think hard about our next round of communications… 

Then the reviews started to trickle in. Friends and family told us when they’d read it, and that they loved it! I mean, of course they said nice things. They weren’t going to say tell us they thought it was rubbish, were they?! It was heartwarming to receive their comments and compliments, and to get that slow-burn feeling that our story is out in the world now, in all its guts and glory. 

As we’ve written this under pseudonyms, we aren’t having a big publicity-orientated launch campaign with parties and sales pushes. Interest in this kind of book is at best ‘niche’ and at worst very limited, so the usual advice to partner with your local bookshop and library and build a local writer profile don’t really apply. Seeing ‘only 4 copies in stock, more coming soon’ on the Amazon page was amazing. Until it moved to ‘only 5 copies in stock’, where it stayed. 

And then – well, nothing. 

It all just went quiet, only a few weeks – not even a month – after the big publication date.

Writer friends tell us that this is very normal, and their experience too. After all the months of frantic and time-sensitive work, and the joy of the book being printed and prepared and ready for everyone else, it does often all go quiet for a bit. And so we take solace from this at least. In a world where we are often wondering what is ‘normal’, apparently this is. So now we will put our energies into thinking about what’s next… and our next blog post too!