My adoption 18 years ago… part 3. I am about to leave for my appointment.. I am already crying. I don't know how to cope. I am so scared, confused. I need someone to talk to, I know that now. I can't bear to go over all her reasons for leaving me. It won’t ever get easier… it is just getting harder. I have tried to block it out. I don't know what to do now. I have to face it. I thought I was ready and I am not. I'm really not. Anyone considering adoption, it is always the 'best thing' but the rejection is horrendous and it has haunted me for my life, and I can't move on.

Editor’s note: Thank you for keeping us up to date with what’s happening…By now, you will have had this meeting to find out more about your birth mother. Perhaps you didn’t go in the end or maybe you finally had the courage to face it. It was a huge step for you, wasn’t it? It may be that your fear of rejection was bigger than the reality. You may feel that it confirmed your sense of rejection – I don’t know.

What I do know is that whatever reasons your mother had for placing you for adoption, you are not defined by what she thinks of you – or thought of you back then. You are someone worth knowing and loving and being friends with and caring for just by being you.

It sounds very much as if your fear is disabling you, preventing you from moving through this world with a sense of confidence and well-being. I really believe some counselling can help you recover a sense of ‘it’s ok to be me’ and ‘I have an identity – I know where I begin and where I end’ and ‘I have a place in this world’.

Do let us know how your meeting went. We’re thinking of you.