In whose best interests?

I keep asking myself this especially when we have a decision to make. The one that we have on the table is one that we discussed some time ago, we had decided and that choice had been taken from us due to circumstances out of control but things have changed and the option has returned.

Do we meet the children’s birth mum?  

We had always said that we would. I feel strongly that it gives me the opportunity to say to the children, when they are older and when they ask, that we did make the effort to meet her, that she wasn’t a bad person and that she did love them.

When we originally discussed this we were very open to it however the children’s social worker felt that it was not appropriate as their birth mum was not accepting of their adoption, her attendance record was poor and her behaviour was angry and aggressive. This seems to have changed and she is still asking to meet us. Honestly, I can’t blame her for being angry, I would think that had the situation been reversed I would have been angry but I would like to think that I would have turned up for every meeting and every contact session.

I have to confess that I am curious to meet her but I am conscious of how hard it might be for her – professionals deemed her to be unfit to care for her children and those children were given to me by those same professionals. I don’t feel like I am in any way ‘better’ than her – I believe that she has been incredibly unlucky in her background, the people surrounding her and the choices that she has made but that does not make a bad person.

At the moment we have agreed to open discussions , we have to wait for the social workers involved to talk to all and decide whether to facilitate a meeting, After that we have to be prepared but the hope is for sooner rather than later.