I have loads of unfulfilled feelings, forbidden by social services through annual letter contact.
I have loads of unfulfilled dislike of the adopter who made promises she refuses now to keep.
I am grateful for what seems like my grand daughters happy childhood.
The legal side of things is she is no longer my granddaughter even though we have memories of her all around the house. This fact is frequently rammed down my throat by the letterbox contact supervisors.
As far as they are concerned our lives go on. Yet for the next 13 years we will be expected to treat her like she is still part of the family being told every important even while we know nothing apart from her 'jolly life' with her adoptive family, which I am grateful for. But have no faith in being the truth.
While she is not to blame for anything, she is being fed a web of lies about why she is with her adoptive family and once she is 18 can find things out for herself, either via letterbox contact from her Mum, which will again be barely more that her own fiction as we no longer have contact with her, or via the Social Services chinese whisper tree.
If the adoptive parent asks about her she will be told information is on a need to know basis and as we don't need to know about the child she adopted in photos etc and I very much doubt she would agree to direct contact anyway, my second grand daughters life is also on a need to know basis.
This goes both ways. Had she not been so manipulative and lie until she got her adoption order, this would be a completely different scenario.
Letterbox 'requires' full disclosure from us, has very little coming the other way.
The most she would get if they made a fuss would be girl and birthday made all the more heartbreaking in the hours not days difference of dates. This is primarily my sons wishes and I agree with them