Australia’s dark history for forced removal of children after birth

My father left me for the first time when I was little. It was far from the last. My mother got sick and my aunt and uncle took care of me as if I were their own child. After my mother died, my father took me away from them, not to take me back as his own daughter, but to send me and my eight siblings, ages two to 13, to Catholic orphanages while he ran away with him and his brother’s wife.

Later, when I was eight years old, the nuns and brothers learned of his whereabouts and sent my two brothers, a sister, and me back to him. Until I was 13, I lived in a tent, a forest cabin, and eventually a house with my siblings, new stepsisters, and a terrible stepmother.

Then my father abandoned me once again. In his first semester of high school, he said: “There is no place for you in this house, you need to find a job, you need to live somewhere else.” He gave me seven days to get out.

I can’t say for sure how much of a role these early life experiences played in what happened later, but I do know that the actions and choices of vulnerable girls and young women should not be judged in isolation.

My older sister in Queensland let me live with her until I was 15, when I moved to Sydney and lived in a hostel with nine other girls. I was working three jobs, but I was in control of my life, free and happy.

Until Jamie* showed up. He was a tall and handsome man, almost twice my age, who worked in the same factory as me and one of my older brothers. He was a wonderful and caring man in my young eyes. We started a relationship. I was painfully shy and innocent to the ways of men. Jamie’s interest was intense and I never doubted his good intentions. Three months later Jamie said he wanted me to marry him; What more could a girl want?

My brother listened intently as I talked about what a great guy Jamie was, and eventually he lost his patience. He pulled me aside for a “big brother” talk. He was in control of this “Jamie character,” as he put it.

“He’s not the man you think he is. He’s a divorcee full of teenage girls almost your age. But what’s worse is that his friends told me that he and his girlfriend have two young children. He’s been seeing you twice, no, three times. You need to stop seeing him immediately.”

I was shattered. I had a bombshell to deliver, too: I was carrying Jamie’s child.

When I told Jamie I was pregnant, he denied it was his fault and said he wanted nothing to do with me or my baby. That was the last time I spoke to him.

I went to the Crown Street Maternity Hospital clinic for antenatal check-ups. I started collecting little baby clothes and looking at them with love. I made a promise to myself and my unborn child: “I will give birth to my baby and raise him with all the love and devotion inside me.”

On March 23, 1971, I gave birth to a healthy baby girl, but the birth was terrible. He was very weak. Doctors started the birth. They pushed and pulled me without paying much attention to what they were doing. They had to do an episiotomy to remove it. Terrified, drugged, and confused, I finally heard little baby cries in the distance. I called him, drugged and thinking the worst, but the nurses held up a pillow blocking my view. Then they took him away.

The next thing I remember was lying traumatized on a bed in the birthing corridor. I begged the nurses to bring my child to me, but nothing moved them. The head nurse told me that, as a single mother with no financial means or family support, my baby was under the ward of the state and would be adopted.

It came as a complete shock. I was never informed or counseled about the doctors’ intentions. They took my baby without any thought, consultation or consent.

I was miserable because I was left alone in the hallway. Then I heard the cruel words of a passing doctor: “What is it? he What are you doing here, blocking the corridors? I’ve already signed his release form. Take him to Wakehurst.”

I was taken to Lady Wakehurst House, an annex of Crown Street Women’s Hospital, where unmarried mothers could be kept out of sight of their newborns. Once there, the staff busily continued my prenatal care with little concern for my pain.

The medications I was given seemed to keep me sleepy. A young nurse told me that if I wanted to have a chance at having my baby, I needed family support. I was informed that my release from Wakehurst was contingent upon my signature on my baby’s adoption paperwork.

A week later, after being released from Lady Wakehurst, I traveled to country NSW to visit another brother and his wife, hoping to get family support to get my baby back. Although they understood my situation, the best they could offer was to adopt my newborn baby and tell him that I could come and visit him whenever I wanted. What a crushing cruelty it is to see the child and not be able to take care of him myself. I said no. It was painful.

The pain of this period of my life has never left me.

I started collecting documents for this story last year. Writing to the adoption registry, waiting for months, gathering evidence, opening emails, wondering what I would learn about this terrible experience.

Over the years, before the advent of e-mail, the mailman gave me quite a few shocks: the letter from Jigsaw (the organization that helps adopted children and their biological parents find each other) telling me that my stolen child was calling me 26 years later; the birth certificate that made it real but pretended I didn’t exist (only the adoptive parents’ names were given); Letter stating that you want to meet.

The letter read: “I struggle so that you can give your first baby to two strangers to raise me and call me their daughter… but I can now understand that you are a virtual orphan… with no financial or family support… Your difficult decision has given me the most precious and wonderful life a child could ask for. [but] … I feel the need to know the blood flowing in my veins… I hope to hear from you soon.

We met; His resemblance to Jamie was striking. For some reason I didn’t expect it to look so much like him. He introduced me to his children as a family friend and we talked about family health problems. I played with my unsuspecting grandchildren. But we rarely talk since then. We never sat down together to discuss all the facts surrounding his forced adoption or the trauma we both experienced the day he was born. It still pains me to think that after nine months of carrying her in my heart, she still believed whether I loved her or not.

Last year there was no postman, mail was electronic, but there was another shock. I had an incarceration record (marked UB-, meaning baby for adoption) as well as a prenatal clinical history record. It had my father’s signature on it, giving permission to the hospital to treat me (the minor) during my pregnancy. For the first time in over 50 years I had any inkling that he knew about my situation. He knew nothing and said nothing, did nothing, offered nothing. It was abandoned again.

On that terrible day, 55 years ago this month, when my newborn baby was forcibly removed by doctors at Crown Street Women’s Hospital, the young girl inside me died. Even now, even though I am 75 years old, my heart has neither forgiven nor forgotten. We should never forget what was done in Australia thousands of defenseless girls and young women those who have been subjected to the abomination of forced adoption. I placed the precious memories of my lost child in a treasure chest in my heart, where I visit and mourn in peace.

*Not his real name.

The author’s name has been kept secret to protect the privacy of his family.