Chapter five - meeting day in Armidale ?

I wake to a beautiful day in Armidale, New South Wales.  Th drive from Sydney took 7 hours not the five and a half I was expecting.  The route through the Hunter Valley and New England Highway was a delight - the autumn leaves were at their best.  This is one big country!

Autumn in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia.

Being in procrastination mode (leaving flight option open) I hadn't booked a hotel room.  I ended up in a large family suite at Quality Hotels.   

The small group of friends I have told about this trip were texting and ringing  to check in on how things were going.  

I tend to do things first and then tell folk how it went afterwards.   Part of this journey has been about me trusting people who I know care about me and let them worry, support and be good friends to me.  Let's face it, if my friends never trusted me with important information about their lives I would start to question the friendship so I am letting them do this with me in 'real time' - that's scary for me too.

So here I am in Armidale.  I have done some thinking about what I could be facing and how I was going to keep myself safe and get what I wanted:

Make sure you stay somewhere reputable, consider letting the hotel staff know you are going out to an important meeting and are expected back at a specific time.  Worst case scenario - your absence will be picked up quickly!

Norma may not be home or away from her address .  What you are going to do - check out rest homes?  hospitals? Ask neighbours? She could be on a 6 month cruise!

If she is at home I might face a number of outcomes - death or fainting (a bit over the top but worth planning for!) - what is the local emergency number?  Yelling, screaming, hitting, door slamming, police calling!  What happens if there is a total denial?  She genuinely doesn't think she is my mother?  What happens if I arrive in the middle of a social event/party/funeral?

I had assumed that Norma's life partner had died so I was likely to be dealing just with her.   About a month before I traveled, Norma put a post up on Facebook showing a photo of her Hank her partner.  At least I know this ahead of time so can factor him into my approach - I would have been really thrown if I'd found this out today.  

A common response to threatening situations is fight (lets hope she doesn't have a gun!), flight or freeze.  After all my scenario thinking I think she will want to protect her secret at all costs.  She will want to make me go away.  I am assuming I will be told to leave or have a door shut in my face.

How frightening will it be to have your big secret turn up.  You have had no prior warning and so will be acting on gut.

I have drafted a note for Norma so that when I approach her today I leave her with some written information just I case her mind goes blank. It could also be something I biff through the door when I slams in my face too!

If I don't tell her this I leave her with no control.  I am here in Armidale and she can't get hold of me, know what I am up to or stop me.  Giving her a way to get in touch feels a kind and important thing to do.

Secrets are funny old things.  Isn't one of the first things we are taught are truth and honesty are fundamental to integrity.  But adoption in the 1960s relies on all parties keeping secrets and not always being honest.  

As an adoptee I was made aware of the need to be respectful of Norma's secret - all that stuff about being mindful of the relinquishing mothers feelings, the likelihood she may have told no one and created a new life for herself that needs to be respected....based on half truth? My dad said not revealing the full truth is lying by omission.

Anyway I digress.  It occurs to me this is not my secret and I am not obliged to be complicit.  Sure it would be cruel to expose this unnecessarily but it's not my secret I am not bound by anyone else's actions, agreements or decisions - I did not sign up for this deal, I am in breach of nothing, I am the boss of me! That kind of took the pressure off my planning to make sure everyone felt protected and safe - it's not my total responsibility.

So in a couple of hours its time to attempt to see her and if profoundly lucky, talk with her.  Let's hope she isn't on holiday or has passed away, or moved.........

Chapter four - my good friend Christine

Christine, as the heading suggests, is a good friend!  She has been a really useful person for me as she 'gave up' a baby for adoption.  She has been contacted by her son and they have occasional and pleasant contact.  Christine has been like my touch stone  re contact and reunion.  She has clarity and kindness and a big dose of reality to offer.

It is so obvious that her sons birth was a time of awfulness (her word) from the conception, to the panic of finding out she was pregnant and facing her family, to the birth, to the relinquishment.   And who wants to got back to awful all the time?  

I can hear her voice now 'honestly it's a time in my life I just don't want to go back to' and it's not said with spite or venom but with tiredness.  The whole business was fraught and unwelcome and the thought of having to give it more head room and heart room is exhausting - that's the  kind of the sense I get when we talk about this stuff.


I recall her telling about a dinner party conversation she was at as a married adult -  where her child's adoption got raised (it's that third glass of wine that does it!).  How folk assumed she was sexually confident or promiscuous.  How distressing it was for Christine sit and listen to her friends make light of what was a ghastly time in her life.   As the chat moved on to the next topic she was left to sit feeling sad, judged and humiliated by the experience.  By the time she retold it to me she was fairly outraged!

Other peoples view are a real problem for me.  One of the reasons I am doing this trip alone is that I can't stand the thought of having to listen to someone else's view and opinion.

My friends fall into two clear camps -

The pink tulle and satin ribbon brigade - those that have read too many trashy novels or watched too many day time Find My Family programmes.  They honestly believe reunion will be bring emotional healing, everyone will get on well, there will be flowers and hugs and tears of joy.  The credits roll and everyone rides off happily into the sunset.

This group aren't interested in the details or complexity they just seem into an emotional moment and their thinking (meaning advice and opinion and recommendations) is best described as light and short term.  Their motivation is faultless, they wish for peace, happiness and closure.  And I love them all.

Then there is the let sleeping dogs lie brigade - these folk have a cautious and sometimes soured view of adoption.  

This is often as the result of a bad adoption experience in their own family or where there is a strong desire to protect the adoption myth or the primacy of the adoptive family. 

I have  a friend Anna who bursts into tears if adoption gets talked about as she finds this really hurtful as it impacts on her view of her own family.  She has two adopted brothers. 

Its important to these folk that we maintain the idea that the new family is the only family.  What happened before was a mistake.  Adoption is the solution.  Any attempt to open up the adoption can of worms could be difficult or dangerous.  Of course their motivation is faultless too they just want to protect and keep me safe.

As I write I can see a third group who are detached or realistic enough to walk a little down the middle.  They are realists who understand the drive to find out more or keep going till every possibility or opportunity has been explored.  They also know there will be disappointment, frustration and hurt.....and they bring tissues and practical common sense.  Bless them all.

Chapter Three - pondering rejection

The Primal Wound by Nancy Verrier was an amazing gift of a book and helped me sort out how I think about the impact of adoption on me.  

Hers was one of the first books I read - others had left me a bit cold and didn't sit well as they just didn't feel right or capture my experience. 

The Primal Wound knocked me right off my seat - I think I read it three times in a row, there were parts that I read and re-read.  Finally someone got it - finally I had words and concepts to describe my reality.  Best of all, it was written from a perspective that didn't seem to be making an ideological stand.  Just a mum describing her own observations of the difference between her biological and adopted children - no axe to grind.

On the surface of it I suspect folk would describe me as pretty up front and not unduly bothered about being adopted. But often the whole adoption thing creeps up on me and is a source of great, great pain and sadness. 

I hit the family jackpot in adoptive family roulette.  I have little to complain about.  Why given a good solid upbringing did adoption continue to be an issue.  How could something that happened so long ago keep popping up?

Until I read The Primal Wound, it just didn't make sense and I would go around and around with this.  I really connect with the idea that a wound that occurs when the mother and baby find themselves apart through adoption. A wound that heals in its own way but leaves a scar that never quite goes away.

For some people the scar will be huge and disfiguring and have a big impact on the person, for others its a battle scare worn with pride.... but we all have a scar.
 
I loved the idea that adoption sets up a life long search for self.  Its not a one off, done and dusted kind of thing.  I don't have to get hung up on the need to revisit my feelings from time to time, its just part of the process.  What a relief! Nancy gave me permission to sometimes feel ok and at other times feel stink!  What I was feeling was normal and perfectly logical.

The chapters dealing with an adoptee's strategies to avoid rejection were perfect. 
  I am pretty self contained and it doesn't take a degree in psychology to work out this is based on not letting people get too close or be in a position to let me down.   I don't gather people around me and there are very few people I able to honest and open with about the things that really matter to me.  I take a long time to trust people at any deep level.

There is every possibility when I approach Norma, my birth mother, in the next few days she could really do some damage.  From slamming the door in my face (literally), to giving me some free and frank feedback about disrupting her life - she has already made it clear she doesn't want contact.

Yip I could be in for a rough ride, there may be unhappy tears but whatever happens this can't be worse than living with the regret of not approaching her or laying my eyes on her.

I can only control myself - I have no ability to make Norma do what she doesn't want to do.

When I started this post I wanted to chew over how I will cope with rejection - the benefit of one finger typing is as I have thought about this - it's not do or die.  It's just part of the journey and there may be a massive speed bump or dead end but at least I had the courage and I kept my promise to myself.

Chapter Two - a self esteem crisis

I would describe myself as fairly confident - some would probably say very confident!

There aren't many situations I find myself in that I can't work my way around and I pride myself on being able to manage even the most dreary dinner party.

I'm not fussed about glitz and glamour - I prefer a dog walk to shopping and the hairdresser.

In the last few days I have found myself really getting anxious about my physical self.  I am too fat, I limp, my hair needs cutting, my skin is ghastly.....and so the list goes on.  This is so out of character for me as I usually just don't care but now it is causing a sense of panic.

I can recognise that this is about not feeling acceptable.  I am about to create a situation where I allow my birth mother to personally reject me - again.

I don't want there to be any reasons for her to do this - particularly ones I could control (note to self - get a new hair dresser!).  I don't want her to find me ugly or disgusting, a source of shame. I don't want her to think what a lucky escape she had off loading me to some unsuspecting family.

I want her to be amazed at how great I am and on this basis be willing to give me a little bit of her time to allow me to breath the same air.

Wow!  Some old lady in New South Wales, who I don't know, has this kind of impact on me - I am 53 years old for goodness sake.

Nothing I can do about the belly roll now but I may just pick up some perfume!

Chapter One - Way back at the beginning

I was born on the 19th of October 1961 at Bethany, Grey Lynn in Auckland, New Zealand.

Bethany Home - Auckland, New Zealand.

5lb 2oz and born a little early.

Ten days after my birth I was taken home by my family.   Mr and Mrs Roberts and their two son's John (aged 7) and Maurice (aged 5).  My real life had now started.  It all was working out just as it was planned.  Problem solved.

These are the facts - and for about 30 years they were all the information that I had.

I am involved in early childhood education, and it was years until it occurred to me that there was a ten day limbo period between my birth and being collected by my family. 

What on earth happened for me during those ten long days? Who cared for me? Who paid attention to me? Did anyone pick me up and hold me?  Those ten days represented all my life and really important days in terms of my development.

Babies in my world are welcome.  Everything is done to make sure the new arrival is prepared for.  No detail is too small.  We wait in anticipation to hear the baby has arrived safely.  We want to see, hold and marvel at the new arrival.  The first few days and weeks are so previous as a new arrival is marveled at, celebrated and welcome into their family group.

It does tear at my heart to think for ten long days there was probably no one in particular looking after me.  I was in a holding pen waiting to be moved on into a family.  Folk used to think babies knew and felt nothing - we now know this is untrue. 

Before I get too gloomy - there is an upside.  

My family talk of the visits from the Salvation Army officers who came to check out hte house.  John and Maurice talk about being threatened within an inch of their lives to behave well.  Mum talked about the horror of finding Maurice telling 5 year old jokes to all who would listen - Fatty and Skinny up at tree, Fatty falls down in a bucket of wee!

I never asked about the detail of how a baby was chosen or the day they took me home - my folks would have shared this with me, I just never asked. But I do know there was joy and pride and love. That warms my heart.

If I get to talk with my birth mother, this will be an important question to ask.  Was I  whipped away, unseen or did she get some time to be with me?

The Salvation Army ran several Bethany Homes in New Zealand, all have closed now. They offered private maternity care for some (the grand and the good?) but were well known for taking in pregnant unmarried women and arranging the subsequent adoptions of their babies. 

Places like Bethany arose as a practical solution to address the problem of growing numbers of illegitimate babies.  Helping couples who got caught our between the swinging 50's and 60's and the advent of reliable and available contraceptives and domestic purposes benefits. 

Adoption continues to be a socially constructed solution to resolve issues.  The advent of open adoptions suggests we have grown up a little bit and the need to keep secrets and hide pregnancies away in places like Bethany have disappeared.

I find these photos of babies at Bethany around the time I was born, really confronting.  Rows of bassinettes, litters of babies.... We were aghast when we saw the orphanages of Eastern Europe in the 1980's but just a few years earlier the same reality played out in our own back yard.   

A person could get all bent out of shape about what went on but I believe, amid the moralising and evangelising, that people were doing their best.

As a child of the 1960's, adoption was rife.  I knew a lot of kids who had been adopted, it was spoken about openly at home, it didn't strike me as odd or worthy of further consideration until years later.

Being adopted has been like an old polaroid photo (that shows my age!) - the picture has slowly emerged over a long period of time. I have had a multitude of thoughts and feelings about it - sometimes its been far from my mind but often it has been up front and personal.  

One thing that I feel shows great maturity on behalf of my folks, is that having watched several other family members struggle with adoption and finding out by chance they were adopted, they were up front from the get go.

They talked openly about the desire to adopt a baby, when I first came home they introduced me as their adopted daughter.  No secrets - openness and honesty.

All my life my parents were happy to talk about my adoption.  It wasn't a dirty secret.  I look back now and wish I had asked more questions but at the time it just wasn't important and I didn't need to know.  Dang!