Mrs Kent
I can't have children. It's not something IVF can solve,no amount of modern medicine could help me conceive, I used to find it very upsetting but now I feel grateful as otherwise I wouldn't have two of the most beautiful children I could ever hope for.
We met with Tom's mother many times before he was born, she was a catholic school girl,her parents were very strict and never found out about Tom until years later. She seemed sweet, we agreed on a open adoption which meant we kept her updated with Tom's progress as he grew up. His birth was very hard for her,she cried a lot,it gave me a stabbing guilt that is still difficult for me to shrug off to this day,thirty years later.
As Tom grew up, we developed a strong relationship with her,she told us he looked just like his father,her childhood sweetheart who supported her decision to give him up for adoption felt it would be too hard to meet him after he was born.
When Tom was three and his mother eighteen we were told her parents had discovered pictures of a little boy,our little boy,including the messages we sent to her, they threw her out when they did find out,she never really showed when she was pregnant with Tom,but her parents were furious. Tom's mother disappeared off the face of the Earth we never heard anything from her once it was apparent she was homeless.
After a year of no contact we received a letter from her out of the blue, explaining of her new lifestyle, she was fast running out of options she was forced into prostitution to keep a roof over her head, I think she was humiliated by this and never contacted us afterwards.
When Tom was six ,we applied to adopt another child, we joined the bottom of line of hundreds hopeful parents, we applied to adopt from china but the amount of paper work lasted years, we frequently flew out to am orphanage to discuss adoption,but the adoption progress takes years. By the time Tom was almost twelve the paper work had barely budged and we'd heard nothing from the orphanage we were beginning to loose hope on having a second child when out of the blue Tom's mother sent us a letter,the first in years containing some wonderful news...