My being adopted into my family was never a secret. My adoptive mum said they used to just mention it if the time was right and left it until I started asking questions. Apparently the first time I asked what it meant I was four years old.

My adoption was open. My adoptive Mum and Dad sent photos and letters of me to my mother (sorry, I've always had an inexplicable hate for the term 'birth mother') until I was about seven; and I was sent up to visit for holidays. I loved to see my grandparents and my older brother; but I dodged contact with my mother. She scared me and I thought that she hated me.

Last year, my older brother invited me to his engagement party. I swung rapidly from "yep, I'll go" to "definitely not". My adoptive mum bullied me into it eventually, and I found myself six hours away from home, twisting my sleeves around my fists and staring at a crowd of people. I was very, very scared.

I wonder now if I knew what was waiting for me once we started talking if I would have initiated it earlier; but I do not think either of us could have handled it.

I may have been born to her, but I consider that moment (twenty one years later) as the start of our connection. We were in constant contact with each other for the next year (and we still are, really). We have an insanely strong mother/daughter connection; and it is a relief to finally have a mother that I am like. We match, her and I. And it's as though I'm just now experiencing what my friends have had all their lives. She is my mother and my best friend all in one.

I have been very angry for a very long time about my adoption. I'd stuffed it down pretty far, but getting to know my mother was like a smack over the head with a brick. How could I have been sent away when it was obvious I was meant to be her daughter? It's taken this whole year to slowly come to terms with it, and there are still days when I lose my temper.

My adoptive mum has had it undeniably rough, and I have myself to blame for that. I can't help but wonder what it's been like for her; after this long with a daughter for me to suddenly find my other mother and leave. She is the one that was responsible for those ties staying connected throughout my childhood, and also the one who forced me into going to my brother's engagement party. She has been nothing but supportive while watching me walk away from her.

To some extent, I truly believe that I could pick up and leave and never look back. I have a connection (genes, personality, whatever you'd call it) with my mother that I will never have with my adoptive mum. So perhaps what it comes down to is common courtesy. My adoptive mother's a good person, and I'd like to think she's done a good job in raising me.

I regret my adoption and I wish I had the chance to grow up with my mother and my big brother. But I cannot regret knowing my adoptive parents; because they are wonderful people and even though I have protected them from most of my feelings, I think they have guessed.