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Andrea Smith was due to fly to the US on 22 December - the proposed first day of strike action by British Airways cabin crew - to spend her first Christmas with her 42-year-old son. It may sound strange for a mother to have never spent Christmas with her son but my son was adopted when he was six-weeks-old. When I had Mark I felt I had little choice but to have him adopted. I came from a strict Catholic family. It was the 60s and you were not expected to have an illegitimate child. I was sent to a Catholic mother and baby home and my father told me not to bring Mark home. In those days there was no help available. I had no money and was completely reliant on my parents. I felt he would have the chance of a better life without me. At that time mothers looked after their babies for six weeks in the mother and baby home before they were adopted. I loved and fed and cared for Mark for those six weeks and handing him over was unbearable and cruel and that day will haunt me forever. It was the worse day of my life but I had to go home and pretend nothing had happened. My sisters had been told I had been away working and I was told to pretend that was the case. My parents never once talked about Mark. It was a subject that had to be forgotten and never discussed again. All that I knew about Mark was his adoptive parents were an American couple. His adoptive father was working with the American Airforce and the couple were, at the time, living in Harrogate in Yorkshire. I later found out that Mark's adoptive parents took him back to the US when he was two and that he was brought up first in Washington and later, after the death of his adoptive mother, in Hawaii with his adoptive father. There hasn't been a day since I handed Mark over that I didn't think about him - his first Christmas, his first words, his first day in school. Had he gone to university? Had he married, or had children? I was able to finally search for him when the law changed in January 2006. Up until this point adopted children could search for their birth parents; the law change meant that parents could now search for their adopted children. Through the adoption agency Norcap I spent the next two years searching for Mark. He was finally found in Phoenix, Arizona. Norcap's policy is to send three letters to the adopted child, suggesting the possibility of contact with the birth parent. If there is no response to the third letter the search ends there. Mark replied to the third letter in June 2008. I went to Phoenix to meet him with my daughter last year. We were only together for three days. He accepted me which was more than I could ever have hoped for and we have been in contact regularly since, over phone and email. Our first Christmas together has been organised since April and I booked the flight with British Airways in July. This was going to be my first Christmas ever with my son and his wife and their two children - my grandchildren - who are five and two. I feel as though I've let my son down in the past and if BA and Unite continue with this strike and I'm unable to travel to America on Tuesday I will feel that I have abandoned my son yet again. "I have heard nothing from the airline and don't know what to do. I will be absolutely broken-hearted if this strike goes ahead.