Virginia Downes's Story

Hi, I was adopted at six weeks old. My biological mother was sixteen and kept me with her in a home for unmarried mothers for six weeks. She loved every moment she had with me. But in the early sixties she wasn’t allowed to keep me. My adoptive mother and father were my Mum and Dad. I loved them unconditionally, as they did me and three other adopted siblings. They told us we were loved by our biological mothers and that it made my Dad and Mum the happiest people in the world to be able to have all of us children, as sadly they could not make babies.

We were happy, loved children, all from different mothers and backgrounds, and had the best life growing up on a farm with the best Mum and Dad. Ours was a happy story, and not for one moment did I ever feel that they were not my parents.

In my late forties, sadly, after my parents passed, I did search for my biological mother, as I had four beautiful daughters of my own now. I found my mother, who had married my father, and they had two children, were very happy, and had managed to live with the pain of losing a child, but had two children they very much loved. It was great to meet them all and their families. But I already had a very happy life of my own. We all keep in contact.

But for me, who loves you, feeds you, helps educate and advise you, nurtures you as you grow, and supports you through thick and thin unconditionally. They were the love of my life, my Mum and Dad.