WHY I STOPPED SEARCHING FOR MUM

Lisa Timoney, 53, has always felt incredibly lucky to be adopted into her family

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Curling up on my mother’s lap with a book, her fingers combed through my hair. I was seven and exceptionally close to Mum. We were so alike, we both loved reading and enjoyed art and we even looked the same, with our dark hair. Nobody would suspect that I didn’t really belong to her. 

I was just six weeks old when my mum Bronwen and dad Kenneth adopted me in March 1970. They’d had fertility problems and I was joining an older sister who they’d also adopted, although wasn’t biologically linked to me. Then, when I was three, a new fertility treatment became available that worked for them, and my youngest sister was born.

My adoption was never kept a secret. There was no big reveal like you often see in films, it was just a normal part of growing up. Fortunately, rather than thinking someone didn’t want me, I felt like I was the chosen one.

I’d often picture my parents walking along rows of cots before picking me to take home. It’s something my mum would tell me too. ‘From the first time I held you in my arms, I knew you were mine,’ she’d say. And while my youngest sister was their biological child, they never treated any of us differently.

It helped that I was so similar to Mum. And there were a few other children at my primary school who had been adopted, so I didn’t stand out as not being from a ‘normal’ family.

But aged 16, I was in teachers said, ‘You seem very well adjusted for someone of your background.’