Growing up adopted – And the moment that changed everything
1 min read by Pip Baume
Some moments split a life in two.
For Roger James, that moment came in 1998 – in a hospital room, after a 24-hour labour, when he held his newborn daughter Ruby. The first blood relative he had ever met.
But to get there, we need to go back.
Growing up knowing
Roger grew up in a loving home where his adoption was never hidden. His adoptive mum once told him his birth mother’s name – it was the name of a month – but Roger could never quite remember whether it was April, May, or June. And he never wanted to ask her again.
That small detail says a lot about growing up adopted. Even in the most open homes, some questions stay quietly unasked.
In Part 2, Roger reflects on what it was actually like to grow up knowing – family life, his teenage girlfriend Elaine (who was also adopted), and the lifelong question every adoptee carries: how much of who I am comes from nature, and how much from nurture?
He speaks warmly about his adoptive parents, who gave him stability, love, and honesty – even if they didn’t have all the answers about where he came from.
Then Ruby was born
In 1998, when Roger was 31, his partner Mel gave birth to their daughter Ruby after a long and difficult labour. As he held her, something shifted.
I didn’t consciously think ‘this is my first blood relative,’ but there was something really powerful going on…The combination of the very long labour and the miracle of birth itself made me think very strongly about my own mother and what she may have gone through giving birth to me – and then releasing me, and going back thousands of miles to Australia on her own.
That image – of a young woman flying home alone, soon after giving him up – has stayed with Roger ever since.
He describes the years since as being haunted by that realisation. Not darkly – but in the way a question haunts you when you know you can’t keep ignoring it. Alongside it has come a quiet, immense gratitude for the choice his birth mother made.
Watch Part 2
New episodes released weekly. In Part 3, Roger talks about what came next – the long years of procrastination, and the spark that finally pushed him to start searching.
Join the conversation
Are you an adoptee who experienced a similar shift when your own child was born? We’d love to hear from you.
Roger’s story is shared with his permission as part of an ongoing multi-part series on Kindred Ponderings.
Pip x
