National Adoption Week runs from the 9th to the 15th of November 2009.

During this time Sky Real Lives will be showing two powerful documentaries about adoption.

Searching For My Son

Monday 9th November at 11pm

This documentary follows several birth parents who embark on a journey to find news about, and hopefully be reunited with, the sons and daughters they haven’t seen since they were adopted.

The film explores the histories of these people, finding out the reasons behind the adoption and tracing the impact it has had on their relationships and families.

We journey with each birth parent throughout the long and emotional search for their children, to discover whether their now adult sons and daughters will want contact with the parents they have never known. 
 

A Mother Like Alex

Tuesday 10th November at 11pm

This is a documentary about one of the UK’s most remarkable mothers – Alex Bell. She is the very proud parent of eight children with special needs, seven of whom have Down’s syndrome.

But what makes Alex so remarkable is that she chose to be a parent to these children with their individual challenges – she’s adopted seven of them and is the foster mother to the eighth one. 

What’s more Alex has done it on her own: she is, and always has been, a single mother.