Sunday Times 2
How adopted woman’s search for birth mum unfolded
Ria Sloan, 26, explained how she was brought up near Inverness, where she was ‘one of the only brown people in [her] home town’.
Ria was reunited with her birth mother Sumithra (pictured embracing in Sri Lanka) after tracking her down through her adoption papers
Although she had a happy childhood, she described how she began to feel that she didn’t ‘properly belong’ and began wondering about her birth mother.
In BBC Two’s Searching for Mum, she returned to Sri Lanka to track down her biological family – eventually being reunited with mother Sumithra, who had been forced to give her up after being abandoned by her boyfriend at the time.
Viewers were quick to react to Ria’s moving story, with many admitting that they had been left in tears. One wrote ‘What a beautiful reaction from Ria’s family’, while another added: ‘Ria’s story brought tears to my eyes. What an emotional journey.’ Another commented ‘Emotional viewing. Happy to see Ria found her biological family’.
Ria was able to meet her birth mother and other relatives, including her grandfather, after taking her adoption documents to an expert in Sri Lanka. They eventually managed to track down the small village of Lulelamulla, Dodangoda – where her mother was documented as living – despite not existing on any maps.
Explaining her decision to look for her biological mother at the start of the programme, Ria said: ‘[I'm] wanting to know if she’s alive, if she thinks about me, if she does want to see me. I think it would ground me so much if i knew.’ She added: ‘As a kid, I never thought about searching or even investigating my adoption. It’s only recently I’ve felt like I’m a bit stuck in between these two countries, and what seems like two very different identities.
‘It’s like feeling you don’t properly belong anywhere. It doesn’t necessary really upset me, but it’s there. I always wonder what my life would be like in Sri Lanka.’
However, Ria admitted that she was fearful of what she would discover in searching for her birth mother.
‘I’m definitely scared of finding out the truth because it’s been a mystery my whole life,’ she said.
‘There’s a big part of me that wants to know if i was born into this world with love ultimately, and that I was wanted.’
Ria returned to her birth country with a picture of her biological mother (above) in a bid to find her
Ria, who went to Sri Lanka with her girlfriend Cat, later discovered that her mother had given her up after being abandoned by her boyfriend when she was pregnant, with her family too poor to raise the child.
‘My mum had been abandoned by her boyfriend when she was pregnant, she gave me up an agency and cried three months afterwards,’ Ria explained. ‘To know that this family remembered me and care about me is against everything I’ve feared.’
Ahead of the meeting, Ria also wrote an emotional letter to her birth mother to express how she felt on being able to see her for the first time. In the letter, she wrote: ‘I can’t quite believe this day has come. For many years I’ve thought about you, stared at the photograph I owned and ached for an understanding of my first days of my life. Simply looking into your eyes and knowing you’re my mother will give me such comfort.’
During the emotional reunion, Ria told her mother of the ‘pain’ she felt not knowing about her biological mother, and whether she was live.
Explaining how she felt after the meeting, she added: ‘I have no idea how this relationship will work from now on but I know I will come back.
‘Although Scotland and Sri Lanka are thousands of miles apart, I don’t feel stuck in between. I feel very firmly rooted in both places.’
(© Daily Mail, London)