Lucy Greenwell

When I started on this investigation, I was trying to understand Jennifer, what she did and why.

But the longer I've spent with Jess, the more I've realised her choices also matter.

Why does someone take the story of their abandonment and their search for answers, this painful, private thing, and decide to tell it?

But it is very public as well.

And I'm trying to understand a bit more about what your hopes were, what it felt like for you to tell your story in this way.

A way of being heard, sure, but maybe it's more than that.

A way of trying to get her new family to see all of this through her eyes.

Jess says she doesn't want a relationship with her birth mother.

She's not angry, she says.

But there's something she keeps coming back to.

So how much does it irk you that she's never had any consequences to this?

That annoys me the most part.

Just own it.

This idea of Jennifer owning her own story comes up again and again.

Jess has been told that when Jennifer admitted to her family that she was Jess's mother, nothing happened.

The story didn't spill out.

There was no release of long-held secrets.

And since then, as far as Jess knows, Jennifer said nothing more.

And without hard facts or reasons, Jess still clings to the story of her being found.

For a long time, though, that verge was very much part of your origin story.