VBJK

Adoption undone. A painful story of an adoption breakdown

Karen Carr

‘Lucy, please come and sit down. I need to talk to you.’ Lucy sat beside me on the settee. I couldn’t think of how to say the words and so I started with, ‘I am so sorry, Lucy.’ I couldn’t stop the tears. ‘I am so, so sorry!’ I held my hands over my face. Lucy hated to see me upset and she tried to put her arms around me as she said, ‘Is it Dad?’ And then she said it. ‘Do I have to move?’

This is the true story of an adoption and an adoption breakdown, bravely told by the adoptive mother. From the final court hearing, when Lucy returned to local authority care, Karen Carr looks back over the four years Lucy was with them and, without apportioning blame, describes what went wrong and why. She doesn’t spare herself, her family or the social workers, and she paints a touching picture of Lucy at the centre of events which she triggers but cannot understand.

Not every relationship is built to last. But when adopters are totally committed to offering the permanence that adopted children so desperately seek, a severance of relationships between an adopted child and their adoptive parents and siblings is particularly harrowing. However, this is not only a tale of loss and regret but also courage, generosity and self-discovery.