The day I found my adoption certificate

Honoured to feature this guest post from Daniel Bishop, who did not know he wasn’t his parents’ biological child until he was in his late 20s. Thank you Daniel for sharing so eloquently.

In early June 2012, I was 26 years old. I was back living in my parents’ house. My brother had died the previous December of lung cancer when he was only 46. My Dad had been unwell for the previous week or so and, in the early hours of June 6th, he had a massive brain hemorrhage which killed him, aged 65. 

It was my job then to gather the necessary documents to register my dad’s death, a day or two after. In amongst all the family documents was where I found my adoption certificate. Something you’d never expect to just find. Except, looking back, maybe I’d always expected it.

Finding out my mum was not my biological mother

My mother had slipped back into the drink and a few days after the funeral and through the tears in the kitchen, it came, “I’m not your Mum. I couldn’t have any more children after what he’d done to me". He being her first husband, my brother’s Dad. She told me I was conceived in a relationship my Dad had with my birth mother whilst they were temporarily separated. 

My immediate response was to reassure her that she was Mum, and I would not think of her any differently. The world had already been shaken after finding the adoption certificate and, to be honest, being told this wasn’t quite as earth shattering as that. It felt like a relief. Looking back, I don’t think I fully appreciated the scale of the outpouring of grief and shame.

Getting my files

Some months later things had settled down and I wrote to adoption services at Suffolk council. I didn’t quite get what I expected. I thought I would get some files or official looking documents; some signed stuff. What I got was a small A4-size plastic wallet with my adoption story inside. It had my birth mother’s name, date of birth, where she was from and some information about her, followed by the narrative of my adoption. It also had my brother’s name and date of birth - he is 54 weeks younger than me. It was the first time I’d heard my story and I was grateful. However, it was nothing like the story my adoptive mother told me, and it didn’t fully hit me until after I’d got home. I must’ve read through the information 10 times, each time in more disbelief than the last. It didn’t add up. 

The story I’d read was that I was the result of a surrogacy agreement. The more I thought about this, the more unlikely it seemed, and I hated how it made me feel. I felt like a dog. Like someone wanted a puppy and went to a breeder. It was horrible. 

One day, my adoptive mum found my adoption pack in my flat and all our old trust issues came out to play. “Please don’t look for her”, “Please wait until I’m dead”. I said I couldn’t wait and that this was about me - for once. Her response? “She was only young, you’ll ruin her life all over again”. I said it was probably better if she went home.

In spring 2014, my Mum was diagnosed with terminal lung and liver cancer. My wedding in November became a survival target and she made it to the big day. The following September she became unwell again. The doctors confirmed that the cancer had spread to her brain and was causing dementia-like symptoms. They estimated that she had weeks to live. She died on November 20th, a month before our first baby was due.

Getting my full birth certificate

In 2016 I began searching again. It occurred to me that I’d never seen the full version of my birth certificate, so I ordered a copy online. Having already had two quite different stories given to me, I kept an open mind as to what I would find. 

I was not expecting to see my adoptive parents’ names on the birth certificate. Nor was I expecting to see a declaration of corrections stated as taking place on my 1st birthday. My mothers’ names had been substituted - so my adoptive Mum out and my birth mum in. The addresses were also substituted: adoptive parents out; birth Mum’s address in. Father’s name was withdrawn with no replacement. So I now have an empty space where there used be a Father’s name. Needless to say at this point my head was a mess. These people lied on my birth certificate. They put their own names on my birth certificate on purpose. This was clearly not a mistake. In my mind, the only way now of getting any answers was finding my birth mother.

Asking Long Lost Family for help

I tried to search for my birth mum and, after much failure, my last idea was reaching out to the TV show Long Lost Family. I thought my story may be unusual enough to spark some interest and if I had to be filmed and be on TV, well, I’d just have to live with it.

Long Lost Family were interested. After several emails and video calls, in November 2017, I got an email from their specialist intermediary to arrange a phone call. I’d been handed over. No filming was going to take place, but I would now be looked after by the intermediary. And they had some news! They had found my biological mother and she was prepared to begin communication. This was exactly what I wanted to hear and the news that I wasn’t going to be filmed was a relief. We were also expecting our second child. 

My biological mother and I exchanged letters. It was a special thing to receive my letter from her. To have her speak to me in her own words, finally, was amazing. It was comforting. It was a relief. It was a huge step closer to the truth. 

Meeting my biological mother

We met in Cambridge in March 2018. My biological mother was gracious enough to travel down as my wife was four weeks or so from her due date. It was incredibly emotional for both of us. We hugged. We got a bit teary. I asked for the truth and she gave it to me, both barrels. 

Firstly, my father (or who I was always told was my father) was most definitely not my father. I could feel the anger as she was talking. The years of thinking about this and going over and over it in her mind was all spilling out. It felt like this took place in a different time and she was a different person now, getting her chance to try and make amends. 

The story unfolded. 

I was born a few weeks early in July 1985 at the Mothers’ Hospital in Clapton. My mother was persuaded to accept help from a married couple unable to have children and I was registered with my adopted parents’ names as my birth parents.

I was angry. Angry for her. Sad for her. I still am. 

Something - I don’t know what - prompted them to correct my birth certificate and make the adoption official. Social services became involved.

There were interviews with social workers. I was under local authority supervision. The observations were written up and filed. My notes spent some time being lost in the archive but were found. I have them, I’ve read them. “The child is too young to understand the purpose of my visits."

The police were involved. The adoption was granted in 1988, somehow. All the way through everything that is recorded it states that the man who took me is my natural father. This is not true. He deleted his name from my birth certificate. How can he do that and the adoption be signed off? It doesn’t add up. The social workers could see through all this, surely? The observations certainly hint as much.

It all starts to make sense

As horrible as this is, it made so many things make sense. Why my parents said that if I was bad, I’d be taken back. Why they always said that if I didn’t go to school, I’d be taken away. Why I felt so distant from them. Why we had nothing in common. Why my isolation punishments never felt like punishments. Why I found affection difficult with them. Why they said there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t hug them. Why my dad blamed me for my mother’s drinking.

As my biological mother and I talked more about our lives, our interests and her family, we got on well - better than I’d hoped. We had a lot in common. I met her husband and niece. We went for dinner and it was a momentous day for me. The bungee cord had relaxed and we’d come back together. Not as if nothing had ever happened but we had started trying to make up for all the time and shared experiences that had been taken from us.

From then on, I was a different person. This was a line-in-the-sand moment; there was life before and life after. I have a different identity now: adoptee; my mother’s son. My name isn’t mine anymore, it never felt like mine.  It’s the person I was at school. At my old jobs. The drinker. The failed musician. Failed athlete. Failed tradesman. Failed everything. Not me anymore. Not me now.

My biological mother and I are still in touch. We see each other a couple of times a year. The distance doesn’t make things easy and we have our lives. Sometimes fitting new people into our lives isn’t that simple but we make the effort. We talk about her to our children and she’s part of their daily lives, which is wonderful. It was tough but we got there. And we’re still getting there. We’re still trying.