Contact - letterbox

(See also Contact: Letterbox and Voices of birth parents & Contact - settling in letter)

Different children and agencies have different letterbox agreements. Contact generally is something they're trying to encourage more in modern day agreements. I'll do a different post on the detail of why's and some of my own thoughts/reflections, but it's likely that there will be an attempt to have at least letterbox contact, even if not direct contact.

So, our agreement is once a year, but whilst little one is younger and so much changes so quickly, then i try to put something together for each month, I don't always manage to write it in month, but have the extra bonus of getting to use it as a lovely tool to think about the changes, developments and achievements in that month.

I've been able to share when LO is asking questions about them, or about when she was with them - one example was when a friend was pregnant they showed her their ultrasound and LO asked about their own. We were lucky that in our case, the Birth family were able and up to replying and did in fact, share some ultrasound pictures. 

I've also continued to try to include something hand written or created by LO, remembering the mention in the 'voices of birth parents' webinar of really valuing something that they've touched/been involved in creating.

Writing this regularly also meant that when contact was close, I made the call to be able to share an extra letter to help them know the most recent interests/achievements etc and help them to have some pre-meet up insights.