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Hi - we had something similar - our children’s birth mum died when they were roughly 7 and 9. They had not seen her since they were very little - my daughter was 8mths at the last contact and my son 2 though neither had lived with them since they were babies. Like you we felt very sad about the choice to meet in the future being lost although as they’ve grown up I’ve sometimes wondered if there was a positive side to this too. We told them right away - my daughter was very upset - she thought a lot about her birth mum and she (or the idea of her) meant a lot to her - I told her teacher too as I thought she might bring it up. My son who has a very avoidant attachment just shrugged and asked to go back to play with his yugio cards. We were tempted to go to the funeral (birth dad had asked) but decided against it and sent a letter and card instead. We got a lovely letter back in reply from birth dad (with help from SW) and is the only letter we have from him. It told us in more detail what had happened and was quite emotional. We promised to take them to visit the grave at some point but haven’t managed to yet - I guess the importance diminishes over the years and we were aware early on that we might bumpy into birth family if we went too soon. We did say prayers for her too. My middle daughter (birth daughter) also took my adopted daughter into a church and lit a candle for her birth mum on one occasion which was lovely. She was very young when she died and as we had the reasons we were able to flag this up when any question of medical risks cane up so try and get all the facts if you can. Good luck - it’s heartbreaking but only one of many aspects of adoption that add to the heart break

Thanks so much for sharing your experience Safia. It's really helpful to read.

We are waiting while post adoption support try and find out a little more information, things I think the children might ask, like where he is buried and whether their birth mother knows. They are also putting us in touch with a couple of people who specialise in bereavement and life story work, so hopefully when we do tell the children we'll feel at least a little prepared.

Perhaps you could seek out story books on the theme of losing a loved one. I am sure that they exist! This might be a gentle way to introduce the topic of death and a good way to ask how they feel about it, stuff like that. This could help you to eventually express the news, perhaps when you feel confident that they may be able to accept it. However, I have never dealt with such a situation, so I may not be the best advisor on this. Best of luck xx

In case your children struggle with the news, I can highly recommend "Muddles, Puddles and Sunshine". My daughter projected all her losses onto the loss of her father, of whom she had no memories. The book helped massively. We wrote down the little bits of information we had and gave many answers as "I wished I could have". My daughter found it incredibly helpful to have a material place for her memories and wishes.

Thanks Indie900 and chestnut tree, great advice and much appreciated. I have a virtual meeting with a bereavement specialist from post adoption support in a couple of days to discuss how to handle it, so I'll post any helpful advice on here to help anyone in the future in a similar situation.