Four Different Versions of Why I Was Adopted

Version 1: In 1960 the government social worker handling the adoption told Mum that our birth mother was a sensitive woman who only had half a house and who received no help from her relatives.

Version 2: Quoted from the New South Wales Government, Department of Youth and Community Services. ‘Giving you up for adoption was a very difficult decision for your parents to make. They were experiencing financial difficulties and could not live on your father’s wage and support twins plus their previous three children. Your mother intended returning to work shortly after your birth. They had discussed various alternatives but decided that adoption would be the best because they wanted you to have a stable upbringing with parents who were in a better position than they were.’

Version 3: In 1990 my birth mother told me that she and my father, who was originally a carpenter by trade, had built their weatherboard house, only hiring tradesmen for the work they were unable to do themselves, such as electricity and plumbing. ‘If we had kept you’, she told me, ‘We would have had to build another room onto the house. My second and third children were born very close together. We did the right thing [in adopting you out], didn’t we?’

Version 4: In 2002, my father’s sister told me that my father had opposed the adoption. ‘Your mother,’ she told me, ‘said “if I have any more babies I will go crazy.”’ My aunt and her husband offered to care for one of the twins until my birth parents were back on their feet. However, the adoption went ahead and, when we left the family, my father told his sister that ‘the babies had gone to a professional couple.’

Do I care that these versions differ? No. I had a great life and no regrets except that I know my father suffered. According to my aunt, he was never the same person afterwards. In common with most romantics I believe that Things Would Have Been Different If I’d Been There.

Now, to the objective version. What does my research tell me? My birth parents were married in 1952. Their first child was born in October 1953, their second in July 1955 and their third in July 1956. Along the way there were at least two miscarriages, according to my aunt. On 6 March 1958, my mother gave birth to a stillborn female at The Women’s Hospital Crown St Sydney. A baby’s birth must be registered if ‘the baby does not show signs of life at birth but gestation is twenty weeks or more.’ (https://www.thewomens.org.au/health-information/pregnancy-and-birth/pregnancy-problems/when-a-baby-dies/legal-information/) Birth certificates can only be accessed after one hundred years, but the baby had a death certificate. Therefore, she was at least 20 weeks old and was conceived no later than the middle of October 1957 when my parents already had three children aged four, two and one.

The cause of death was intra-uterine asphyxia which means the foetus doesn’t get enough oxygen because of a dodgy blood supply. There are numerous reasons why this may occur. My aunt told me that my mother had septicaemia and was in hospital for some time (she may have said a month). Crown St was a specialist women’s hospital in those days and my mother’s admission there, rather than the small local hospital where we were born, is in indication of the severity of her condition. The baby, whom we have named Maria, was farewelled in a government funeral and buried in Crown land in Sydney’s Rookwood Cemetery.

Then in April 1959, my mother fell pregnant with twins.

Why have I chosen to ignore ‘Why I Was Adopted, Versions 1 to 4’ and instead create an entirely new account of what was happening in the lives of my birth parents? I suppose the answer really lies in age. As the years have rolled on I have lived through a smorgasbord of emotions regarding adoption, from romantic day dreams, to anger and frustration until today I feel completely calm and, in a way, disassociated from the events that have led to me being where I am and who I am.

It seems reasonable to me that our imminent birth created a crisis in a family suffering from pregnancy overload. My mother was thirty-nine at the time and always told my sister that she had had a hysterectomy after she was born. That certainly solved the fertility problem. When I reappeared forty years later, she switched tactics and told my sister that the operation had been performed after the twins. And that’s forgivable too.

People have asked me whether my mother knew she was expecting twins and whether she would have kept us had it been a single birth. To the former question I can only answer that shea told me she never looked very big when she was pregnant. I’m not sure if she was referring to us and, in any case, twins weighing eight pounds and six pounds two ounces would have produced more than a mild swelling. To the latter, I’m not sure. She never said anything.