Why Won't They Bring Me My Baby? Memoir of an lDA (Late Discovery Adoptee) Anne McEncroe   © Copyright 2024 by Anne NcEncroe

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Fifty years ago, my younger sister’s decision to have her out-of-wedlock baby daughter adopted started a time-bomb ticking. She spent these fifty years trying to track her daughter down, but found dead-ends at every turn until 2000, when the Australian Adoption Authorities allowed the files to be accessed. Then the daughter found my sister! Amid much rejoicing at their long-awaited reunion, my sister phoned me to ask if I knew what a notation on the adoption papers meant. It read "Mother adopted but they (the adoption authorities) don't think she knows." I tell her that surely a fifty year old pencilled note in a margin must be a mistake, but I will check with our older brother … hence the fateful message.

Those pages of dry adoption legalese release major turmoil into my peaceful life. As the story unfolds, it exposes a secret that all the participants have kept remarkably well, revealing what my sister and I were never supposed to know. How can five words pencilled in a margin be so catastrophic? An audible gasp from my brother and a mumbled "… Secret … promise … Mum and Dad! I'll send you an email" is the incredible response – my first thought is if this is true, and he knows, it must have been an inhuman pressure that would have shaped his whole life.

This bombshell obliterated my sense of self but simultaneously answered myriad questions that had haunted me for decades. What it did not explain was the love of, affinity with and similarity to, my adored dad. “How could they not tell me?” was the first of myriad questions which bubbled to the surface of my consciousness, while the world as I knew it, flew off its axis.

       Three weeks before the revelation I had seventy years chapter and verse of who I was. Now: Who do I think I am? I don’t know any more. I don’t know whether I’ll ever really know.

To allay the shock a little, I immediately embark on a relentless quest to uncover my biological roots, seeking to piece together my true identity. Shocked to find that my original birth certificate is marked "not to be used for legal purposes," I learn that my details have been transferred to my adoptive parents, leaving me with a fabricated legal identity and a profound silence for seventy years

My journey delves into the complexities of an unplanned pregnancy in the 1940s, involving my biological mother, the daughter of the Lord Mayor of a major country town. The Mitchell Library archives eventually reveals my true name and birth details, unravelling a web of secrets, lies, and a shattering betrayal by the man I had always believed to be my adored father.

Persisting, sifting, collecting titbits, raking through church military and local newspaper records uncovers my original family tree with members all over Australia. Reconstructing my identity becomes a mammoth task and eventuates in whirlwind trip to connect in person with my new-found relatives, including and eighty-six year old half-sister. A wedding to my partner follows, to which all were invited (and come!) thus consolidating my new genealogy.

The poignant title stems from the heart-wrenching last words of my ninety-two-year-old natural (rather than the chilling term, ‘biological’) mother: “Why won’t they bring me my baby?” These words encapsulate the profound sense of loss and longing that permeated both our lives; overtly in one and covertly, the other.

       Identity is not any one thing, but depends on one's sense of relationship over the generations to one's heritage - biological and historical roots, as well as one's immediate life history. The one is insufficient without the other. What traits do we inherit and why? What exactly sits at the root of all our existence? Identity is a frail business and my discovery that everything from my lineage to my parents, right down to my very own sense of self is a lie, is shocking. How do I live with myself after finding I am not who I thought I was?

       Being late to the table, I feel it is well overdue that adopted people need their collective truths to be heard, believed and respected. What I and others do not need is the accepted myths – of rescue, of salvation, of the required gratitude for the fact of our adoption. It is commonly seen as a fairy-tale ending to a tragic story, completely ignoring the fact that the baby involved will grow up one day and want answers to the eternal question 'Where did I come from?'

When all is said and done my life is all based on lies starting with a fake birth certificate - the lie upon which all subsequent lies of my life are constructed. I am horrified and traumatised to find that the document I relied on so heavily in basing my identity was, and still is, a fabrication. I will never recover from that, ever. Why should a birth certificate not recognise how the child came about; even if there was a surrogate, egg donor, or sperm donor, or any contemporary permutation? All information should be recorded so a child has means of authentic identification.

Ultimately a new, authentic identity that includes myself and my son has now been created. My story, spanning into my ninth decade, highlights not an ending but a hopeful beginning. I passionately emphasize the suffering adoptees endure when denied origins, and I firmly advocate for truth and transparency in adoption, not only in Australia, but world-wide.

I did have all the love and affection from my adoptive parents a girl could ever want, but my perception of love has been shattered by the knowledge of the lies and deception of my life. How can love do this to a person - perpetuate a myth for seventy years? I cannot think of a more momentous lie than to deny, hide, mislead, and deceive a person about their true identity. No amount of love will erode the fact that who we are reflects the whole of where we come from.

However, the nightmare of finding out the circumstances of my birth is finally fading into a relatively more peaceful place. Actual paternity and kinship may be missing, but by taking something that isn’t your own and breathing new life into it, that something becomes your creation. It really is a pure manifestation of love. Ten years have passed since the awful truth. Ten years of adjusting to a new reality. In regard to the old adage “Time heals all wounds”. I am dubious about the healing; I sadly reflect that neither my new-found mother nor father can ever be completely mine; the term adoption still traumatises me; and every now and then I am overcome by a physical sensation of slipping back into that chasm. Yet time has also brought me to a place of greater acceptance of my life now. I feel that all things considered in the most positive light, I can finally begin to see the 'real me'.

       No doubt I will continue to reflect on this amazing circle of life. The family with whom I was raised will always be my family, but now this family has expanded to encompass all my new blood relatives. A poignant reflection to me of the way things could have always been. After the passage of so many years and the established life patterns of all the various family members, slotting into a closer relationship at this late stage is difficult, if not actually undesirable, but inroads are being made. Fabulous recent trips to Tasmania, Melbourne and Perth have reinforced all the new ties and extended the family net even further.

As I explore my new world I realise I am a product of two halves of myself. I discover that to move on, these halves must lean in to each other and learn to get along. Or at least co-exist! Between them I am whole again. I try to look upon life now as a river with a never-ending flow. I have learned that acceptance is the key as I follow the changing course of my life. Every now and then a particular place transports me back to a former version of myself, the person I once was, and reminds me that the family I grew up with will always be my family and the new people in my life will be my very special new family.

       Finding all this out is not closure but an opening to a whole new vista. We are all accidents of history. Life could be viewed a “one sperm one egg” moment. Any tiny change and the result would be an entirely different human being. As journalist Alice Tovey says we are all “a by-product of a disjointed universe trying to exist in chaos…”. I luckily landed in the right cot and am so fortunate that my two very different sets of parents both brought myriad genetic and material blessings into my life. However, just as I see myself as a hybrid made of two sets of paternal ancestors who would never have crossed paths, it is beginning to look as if this is not quite accurate. Unbelievably, my research is pointing to an indication that both my adopted and natural forbears have a common ancestor in the not too distant past!

My ever-loving, patient and optimistic husband philosophised, “You will be you in the end. Whoever you turn out to be!” and was always there when I needed him to lean against in my search. When I started out on my seemingly perilous journey I went into a frightening labyrinth, hoping that I might eventually emerge with my real identity. I have come through, feeling like a patchwork of new and old insights pasted precariously together, but I fnally have my story. Now I can live in the present and move into what little future I have left. I remind myself that happiness does not come from anywhere or anyone else, just from me …

Life's great adventure continues. I have survived. The branches may have all fallen from what I thought for seventy years was my family tree, but nevertheless a promising healthy new branch is starting to bud on an old well established tree trunk. In my ninth decade, my story begins anew!

My journey of identity and belonging, I believe, is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative power of uncovering one’s true self.

POST SCRIPT:

       Tears welled after an unexpected phone call in July 2022 from my Perth cousin Sadly my cousin/her sister has died. Her ashes were to be interred in the same grave as their parents, and my mother. Because the headstone would to have to be altered, Mary explained that with my permission, they would like to add my name as my mother’s daughter. I am overwhelmed and thrilled that finally there will be one official place in the world where I can actually be linked with my mother. Nowhere else, in any legal sense, is this permitted.

It is heartwarming that my new relatives see fit to honour my membership on the family tree this way. I drop everything and fly to Perth for the interment ceremony. The cremation has already taken place, so it becomes a celebration of Dorothy’s life. A space has been dug out under the headstone and to my astonishment there, exposed, are my mother’s ashes. Mary handed them to me to hold.

       Obliterating the party atmosphere of this occasion, holding that plastic container of ashes is the saddest and most intensely private moment I have ever experienced. Surreal almost explains the wonderment of being the closest to, yet also the farthest from, the mother I have never known.

Born in 1944, I went to primary school at Balgowlah and attended Stella Maris College Manly until I successfully passed the Intermediate Examination in 1958. Thence a Secretarial Diploma from North Sydney Technical College. Many and varied positions as a Secretary/PA ensued. Travelled extensively in the 70s, including overland from London to Calcutta. Married for the first time in 1976, and was a stay at home mum for my one son until I graduated from Sydney University in 1994, aged 50, majoring in Psychology and History and Philosophy of Science. Next was a University of New South Wales Community History Certificate where my final paper was a Biography of my father with a background history of Radio Station 2SM earning a HD. (Picked up on the internet by a Radio History Group in the US resulting in my giving a talk at a Radio History Conference in San Diego.) Next accomplishment was a Masters in Local History from UTS graduating in 2004. Divorced 2006. Travelled Australia with partner 2008-2014). Discovered I was adopted in 2015. Married partner in 2018.