Born Between The Lines: Lucy’s Adoption Story

When Lucy was little, a boy at school asked if she used to live in an orphanage. In the first episode, Lucy and her best friend and Director, Anna, look at what adoption really means, bust the myths about who can adopt, and begin telling Lucy's story, from her "tummy mummy" to the people who told her she was lucky. Honest, funny in places, and ending with the first lines of a letter to her birth parents.

"Our job is to find families for our children, not children for our families." Charlotte and Steph from One Adoption West Yorkshire explain what really happens when someone decides to adopt, from the first information evening to the years after a child moves in. Why are some people told to wait? Why does a child's life story matter so much? And what is it like when adoptive and birth families meet for the first time?

Her brother was adamant he didn't want a new sister, until baby Holly crawled across the room and held her arms out to him and nobody else. Holly and her mum, Jane, share the stories that shaped their family, from sibling pranks and awkward questions to the day Holly's phone pinged with a message from her birth mother. A warm, funny conversation about finding where you came from and still knowing exactly where home is.

"Were you found in a bin?" "Didn't your parents want you?" Tanya, who manages the Adopteens service and is adopted herself, goes through the comments adopted teenagers hear every day, and Lucy recognises almost all of them. They talk about why adoption is still used as a punchline, what films and TV keep getting wrong, and why support shouldn't stop at 18. This one will change how you hear a throwaway joke.

At the start of the series, Lucy began a letter to the birth parents she had never spoken to. Now she has sent it, and both of them have written back. In the finale, adopted people, parents, friends and professionals share what they wish the world understood and the message they would leave for the next generation. Then Lucy reads her letter, in full, for the first time. The ending the whole series has been building to.