REUNIONS CAN UNLEASH A TORRENT OF SHOCK AND TRAUMA ”

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We know the formula: it starts with a secret pregnancy, a baby born then signed away to be raised by another family, growing up with unanswered questions and a piece of their past forever missing. Fast-forward to adulthood: the birth mother is found – she has longed for this moment every day of her life – and in an emotional reunion, mysteries are solved, order is restored and everyone lives happily ever after.

Adoption reunions are everywhere – on TV, in films and newspapers – and now that ITV’s Long Lost Family has returned for an eighth series, it seems we can’t get enough of the tears, pain and heartache in every real-life story as adoptees search for their birth families before the inevitable joyful meeting.

But such programmes can mask more complex issues. Each ‘happy ending’ has been carefully managed behind the scenes by countless professionals – and searches that don’t end happily never make the final cut. Often the adoptive parents barely feature, but what about their emotions, their lifetime of love and parenting? Reunions, when handled without care, can unleash a torrent of shock and trauma not only for the adopted child and the birth family, but also for the adoptive parents.

Harriet, 79, adopted her two children in the late 1960s and she has struggled to cope with her son’s recent reunion with his birth mother.

Adoptive parents have their own painful journey that usually starts with infertility. Harriet was just 17, staying with friends in a remote part of Scotland, when she developed appendicitis. She was transferred by boat, train and car to Perth. Her appendix erupted on the train, she developed peritonitis and septicaemia and her reproductive organs were irreparably damaged. Though it was 60 years ago, she remembers the fear as if it were yesterday. ‘I fought so hard to have children,’ says Harriet, who later married a doctor and began the process of adoption. ‘When I saw my daughter, she was six weeks old and looked like a china doll. I fell in love with her. Two years later, we travelled to England in a snowstorm to collect our longed-for son [born to a different mother].’

In most ‘closed’ adoptions before 1975, babies were given up by single mothers who had no means to raise a child. Rightly or wrongly, when adoptive parents took these babies in their arms they were told it was for ever and there would be no contact with the birth families.

‘In those days, adoption meant they weren’t anything other than my children,’ says Harriet. ‘But we were always open about it; when they were young, we told them how we couldn’t make a baby and how much we wanted them. They have been the hub of my life, my greatest joy.’

Both children became successful adults with marriages and children of their own. Harriet, now divorced, has remained close to them and always said she would understand if they wished to find their birth parents, but requested that they tell her first. Both insisted they weren’t interested.

‘Then two years ago my son phoned in a terrible state. His wife had found his natural mother online. She lived in Australia, but was coming to London the following week and they were going to meet.’

The shock was incredible, a physical blow. ‘I didn’t expect to be so distraught,’ says Harriet. ‘Some of my hair fell out, I lost my sense of smell and had anxiety attacks. I didn’t want to socialise; I shut myself in my house. I would get up, feed the dogs and cats, then go to bed. I could hardly sleep and when I did I had nightmares about being rejected. It’s hard to describe, but it was as though I didn’t exist, as if I was in limbo.’

The reunion went ahead without Harriet or her daughter. Her son’s birth mother now comes to the UK a couple of times a year and has become particularly close to her son’s wife and built a relationship with his children. ‘It’s as if his sister and I are in one box and his natural family are in another,’ says Harriet. ‘I felt I’d been airbrushed out of his life; it was like a living bereavement.’

When Harriet finally began therapy, her counsellor said that she was suffering post-traumatic stress. Her relationship with her son is healing, but they don’t speak about his connection with his birth mother. Though Harriet wrote her a welcome letter and said that she hoped they would meet one day, there has been no attempt to bring them together.

Mike Hancock, head of adult services at the Leeds office of adoption agency PAC-UK, is all too aware that reunions can be fraught. ‘Unlike today’s adopters, the older generation were told there would never be any contact with birth families,’ he says. ‘Then the thinking and the law changed.’ In 1976, adopted adults were given the right to find their birth parents and in 2002, this right to know was extended to birth families who can register that they would like to be contacted by children given up for adoption. ‘It’s a big adjustment for some adoptive parents. They can feel excluded and hurt; they fear that they’re losing their children. It can seem like a rejection.

‘Adults have the right to find their birth families and it’s up to them how they do it,’ Hancock continues. ‘We encourage them to include their adoptive parents from the beginning. There has already been so much secrecy around adoption and we don’t want to encourage any more.

‘For an adoptive parent, the key is to understand you’re not being replaced – if you view the birth family as competition, it will be tough. The urge for an adopted