The Girls Who Went Away (45 page)

One of the things that I’ve often said to people is that one of the greatest gifts, really, that you can give to somebody else is to just listen to who they are, and what they have to say, what their experience is. Just to be able to talk and feel like somebody is really hearing what you have to say. Sometimes that’s all you need. If you think that somebody else really hears you, and understands you, that can be very healing. That’s a wonderful gift that people can give.

—Sandy I

The public’s lack of understanding of these women’s experiences—and the notion that they did not suffer a loss—is a result of the women’s lack of voice, not their lack of feelings.

Ann,

I am writing to you in response to the article I read in
The Boston Globe
about adoption. I would like to share my experience with you because, like your article, it gave me a different perspective regarding the birth mother. However this experience took place in 2003 and not 1966.

I always felt adoption was a win, win, win situation. I often thought of the birth mother as unfit, or really not wanting her baby for whatever reason. What could be better for a child than to go from an unwanted situation into a loving situation?

Then, really good friends of mine had one child and wanted a second. After so many unsuccessful attempts, they decided to pursue adoption. After extensive research on their part, they put ads in several newspapers in the Midwest. Mostly they were contacted by young unwed women who were pregnant. They finally connected with one, who was as interested in them as they were in her.

No one knew the woman was pregnant, and wanting to keep it that way, she moved closer to them. They brought her to the East Coast and
even provided her with a therapist to help her cope with her decision to give up her child.

The birth mother was young, not college educated, and did not come from an affluent family. The father of the baby did not want the child. My friends are a good family. He is successful and she is a stay-at-home mom.

After the baby was born, the birth mother had a hard time signing the papers. My friends were traumatized at the reality of not being able to keep the baby. In speaking with them, they felt betrayed; after all they did for her along with the relationship they developed. She finally signed the papers after several weeks. My friends were of course delighted. The baby is now part of a wonderful family.

I was saddened by this story, and to my surprise, I felt for the birth mother. I didn’t see this woman as unfit, or not really wanting her baby. I saw her as someone who could not give her child the same life that my friends could. It seemed to be a “timing” issue and because of her mistake, my friends will raise her baby as their own. I also couldn’t help wondering what if she had support financially and emotionally?

So when I read your article, I wasn’t sure how far we have come regarding adoption or what the truth about adoption is. Too bad we can’t adopt mothers.
¹¹

Patricia

The voices of surrendering mothers need to be included in ongoing debates regarding adoption policy and law, women’s reproductive rights, and sex education. The double standard is still very much a part of our cultural psyche. It is still tolerated within institutions and families and ultimately damages generations of men and women alike. These women were made to carry the full emotional weight of circumstances that were the inevitable consequence of a society that denied teenage sexuality, failed to hold young men equally responsible, withheld sex education and birth control from unmarried women, allowed few options if pregnancy occurred, and considered unmarried women unfit to be mothers. Asking the women to keep their secret and deny their child may have worked out well for others, but not for many of the mothers. Their experience and their motherhood have been silenced and denied for too long.

I feel lucky. I feel lucky because I know my daughter is out there and she’s fine, and healthy, and productive, and beautiful. I feel lucky that she says she loves me. I feel lucky that my children love me and understand what happened. I feel lucky that I survived cancer. And I feel lucky that I now have a voice. I didn’t for so long, but you’re not going to shut me up now. Keeping things inside kills you. You rot from the inside out. I did a great job of punishing myself for thirty-two years. But you just have to set yourself free, and that’s what talking about it does.

—Ruth

LYDIA

I
was sixteen and lived in Southern California with my parents. I did things that girls in Southern California do: I went to the beach and had a good time. I liked school. I met a very nice young man, a musician, and we started hanging out together. He went to the other school in our valley and he would come up to see me. We became very, very close and very devoted to one another. I had never been intimate with anyone before because I was pretty young. At one point we did find out that we were pregnant and we were both shocked…I mean, I don’t know why we were shocked, but we were.

My parents got together with my son’s father’s parents, to make the so-called problem go away, disappear. They decided the best thing for me and for everybody, I guess, would be to send me to a facility—they called it a home, but I called it a facility—to sort of warehouse me in Los Angeles for the duration of my pregnancy.

I just felt like I had done this horrific thing and I was not in any position to protest or say what I wanted. Certainly I wasn’t in any position to say, “Is there any way that my baby wouldn’t have to be taken?” You know, “You have done quite enough, young lady.” In those times, and certainly in my family, I would not come up against my father or my mother and say, “I’m gonna do this or I’m gonna do that.” If they put their foot down, that was pretty much the way it was going to be. So the decision was made that I would be sent away and that our baby would be put up for adoption and that was just how it was.

When the time came, my parents loaded me up and took me down to this place and I just remember never being as fearful and distressed. I mean, looking back, I can’t imagine sending my child away in that condition. I just don’t know how they could do it, but they did. We went to this place and it was institutional looking; it was just cold. I remember there was this aquarium in the sitting area, with all these little fish in there, and I was just mesmerized.
I just wanted to be in there with the fish, just take me away from this place and from these people. I didn’t want to be deposited there. They left and I was in such shock, I just clammed up and I think I just went inside myself.

I was taken to this long, long room with a bunch of beds. I don’t know how many, there had to be twenty or thirty beds right next to one another, each with this little tiny two-drawer stand. After I was there for ten days or something, I told my parents that I was going to run away if they didn’t come and get me. My dad finally came down and took me to dinner. I was very, very lonely and unhappy there.

There was just a constant sort of indoctrination with these meetings. They’d sit us all in a big group and tell us what a wonderful thing we were doing, and that whoever the families were that would get our babies they were these sort of idyllic sort of families, they were perfect. That sounded good to me. I was sixteen and I thought that’s what my baby needs. It doesn’t need me.

At some point my dad did come and take me home. I don’t know which place was worse because they really did not want me to be there; that was really evident. They were very angry with me. I pretty much stayed in my room and at one point I put a lock on my door because my mother was especially unhappy with me and treated me badly. They called me terrible names that I would never call my daughter. First they tried to get rid of me and then they brought me home and called me terrible names. That stuck with me, too. To have your mother call you a slut or a whore. I mean, it sent a real message about being pregnant and having children. Those were my memories, that’s my experience.

My boyfriend and I were very much in love, we saw a future together, whatever that would mean. The message I got as a young expectant mother was I wasn’t good enough. I mean, basically that was the message. I wasn’t good enough for my child. That stands out as a message that I carry to this day. That’s probably why I never had any children after my son.

Ironically, my son’s father didn’t have any children of his own, either. I think that message really hit home with us at a point in our lives when we hadn’t really developed the ego strength to withstand that kind of onslaught. I felt denigrated, marginalized. I couldn’t put it into words then, but
I just thought, “I’m not good enough,” and that never went away. I also didn’t want to have children again because I really felt strongly that—how do I put this?—I didn’t want to do that to my son. If I couldn’t raise my son, why would I have another child to raise? That would dishonor my son. I honestly felt that all my life. So I never had children. But I was always striving to be better and better and prove that I was good enough or that I was mother material, that I could be respected in that way, and I never got there.

I wasn’t looking forward to going to the hospital and giving birth because then I knew that was going to be it. I’d be separated from my baby. They let the father stay with me for quite a long time and so that was very comforting. I guess they finally told him that he would have to leave. It’s very painful even now, thirty-five years later. I gave birth to a little boy and they let me see him, but they took him away pretty quickly. I remember he screamed really loudly and they said he had a really good set of lungs.

The first morning, a couple of people came from the county in suits. I was flat on my back with my head flat because I had had an epidural. I remember I had to sign the paper; it was only about nine hours after I gave birth. I had to do it, like, upside down. She said, “This is just so that we can give your son any medical attention. This is your permission, that’s all this is.” Well, come to find out that it wasn’t just that; it was also for foster care. No one had ever said the words
foster care.
I had no idea. I signed it, and I guess a day or two went by and finally a nurse came in with my son all wrapped up and she gave him to me.

I was really surprised because they had told me that he couldn’t get out of his incubator. They told me that he weighed three pounds three ounces, or something like that, and that he was so frail that he had to be in this incubator or he would get sick. And, of course, I believed the doctors. So, anyway, this nurse brought him and let me hold him for about an hour and that was just the best. I never forgot that time. It was the best thing that I can ever remember. I was so happy, I felt peaceful. I thought this is how it’s supposed to be.

I’m fifty-two now. I had my son thirty-five years ago and to retell…to recount what happened during that time and to talk about this even after all these years, I’m trembling. I think a person could see that my body is trembling. It’s just as intense as it was when they first took my son away.

We got to see our son one more time when we went to sign the papers at the social-services office. We got to sit with him and hold him and then we were brought into a little area where we were supposed to sign these papers. I just remember shutting down even more so, just going on automatic. They told me what to do and where to sign and that’s what I did. The father was right there with me and he held my hand and I signed everything that they wanted me to sign. I distinctly remember walking out of that building and leaving my little boy in there.

I was never the same person after I came out of that building. I became much more introverted. Definitely not trusting, I didn’t trust people after that, really. I had a pretty good self-image right up to that time. I think going through that, and being told by all kinds of people—parents, doctors, social workers—that I wasn’t what I thought I was…I guess I thought they were right.

I became very depressed. I didn’t know what was happening to me. I had never been depressed before. I had been a pretty happy young woman, pretty well adjusted, I loved life, I looked forward to things, I was pretty smart, I was resourceful, I was creative, I liked who I was. Not that all those things went away, but I think to have your baby taken—and I want to make the point that he
was
taken from me. I never gave him away. He was never meant to be a gift. If anything, the gift was that I thought I gave him the parents that he needed.
They
were the gift.
They
were the gift to
him.
My son was not a gift.

My boyfriend and I were still together. He graduated and we actually got a little home together. A beautiful home up at the top of a hill and we were very happy for a long time. I think as time went by, though, I had changed so much, I really became a different person. So eventually we went our separate ways. I decided that I would go ahead and get into college; I was a good student. I really enjoyed creative writing. My professors encouraged me to send my work off and I got published in some very good journals. That sort of lifted me up and I thought, “Well, there is something that I’m good at.” I think I had to prove something to myself. I had to find something that I felt like I could do, that I was good at.

I think at that point, emotionally, I was trying to cover up and just, as
they say, dance as fast as I could to not think about what had happened. Then one day I just couldn’t get out of bed. I was at school and I was in the midst of all these midterms and I couldn’t move. I really didn’t see it coming. I simply broke down. My parents had to come and get me. Even then, they didn’t recognize that I was having a very serious problem coping with this loss. I can’t imagine that they didn’t know what this stemmed from, but they didn’t acknowledge it. We never talked about my son ever, ever, until he found me thirty years later. It was like a big dead horse on the dining-room table that we all danced around.