The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade

by Ann Fessler

  He called me one time and said, “I can’t begin to tell you how awful I feel that you went through all of that alone.” I was just blown away. I said, “Well, it’s over and done with and it was my choice. I didn’t give you the option to participate at all.” You know, at twenty he seemed kind of callous. He was big, good-looking, a good student—he had everything going for him, so he was kind of arrogant. But I think he probably was a much better person than I knew. Either that or his wife, who sounds pretty wonderful, has had a really good influence on him.

  —Nancy III

  For mothers, the reunion is obviously complicated by the memories surrounding their pregnancy and the treatment they received. They have been living with the fact that they have a child somewhere out in the world. They have wondered what kind of life their child has had and have worried that it did not have the “better life” that was promised. They also fear that their child may hate them for what they did or, worse, that their child is dead. For the women who searched, their need to know what had become of their child ultimately outweighed their fears of bad news or rejection. A few of the mothers I interviewed did, in fact, find very bad news waiting for them at the end of their search.

  The agency located his family and I wrote a letter to them, which was sent through the agency, and I got a letter back with some pictures. He looked just like his father. He even had the same glasses that his father used to wear. I mean, those pictures were like a treasure.

  Then within probably a year or so, I got a call from the agency telling me that my son had Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It is a fatal disease—you generally don’t live beyond your early twenties. So then there was another whole grief process. He was probably sixteen at this point in time and he was in a wheelchair and on oxygen, but he was still in school. They said that they had approached him to let him know that I was interested in having some contact and that my son had decided he wasn’t ready to do that.

  Within a year, I got a phone call from the woman that I had been working with at Catholic Charities and she said, “I wanted you to know that your son died.” She said it had happened earlier in the week.

  —Susan I

  We finally found the names of my son’s parents. I couldn’t make the phone call. From searching, we knew he didn’t have credit, he didn’t have a phone, there was nothing in his name and he was in his mid-twenties, so there was something wrong. I had my best friend make the phone call to his adoptive father. He told her that my son was in the state prison.

  It just about broke my heart, especially when his father said, “Ever since he was six years old he wanted his real mother, he’d been asking how to find his real mother.” He said he started doing drugs when he was in high school. Well, his birth father had committed suicide when he was twenty-seven because he could not get off drugs. His mother will not speak to me. She thinks I gave him the bad seed.

  He’s in prison because he committed murder. He and his roommate were up in the mountains with guns and doing some kind of drugs and he shot him. He will be in the state prison until I’m sixty-seven, I think. I got to go visit him five years ago, and he was so apologetic. He said, “I just can’t believe you’re having to see me in this situation. I am so sorry. I’m so sorry.” I said, “We all make mistakes, but the mistake you made was one that I don’t know how you’re ever going to be forgiven for.”

  I communicate with him by letters and occasional phone calls. I’m a mother. Mothers just have that bond with their children. I don’t know how to describe it. You just can’t break that bond, I don’t care what your kids do. I guess that’s how I was raised.

  —Nancy II

  There are mothers who do not want to search or be found, but their numbers would seem to be far fewer than those who welcome contact. Some evidence of this can be found in data compiled by states that have recently passed bills granting adoptees access to their original birth certificates. The state of Oregon began giving adoptees access to unamended birth certificates in 2000. The Oregon system allows both mothers and fathers to send in a nonbinding Contact Preference Form indicating whether they would like to be contacted directly, contacted through an intermediary, or not contacted at all by their adult child. A Birth Parent Updated Medical History Form must be filled out by any parent who does not want to be contacted. As of August of 2005, 8,615 birth certificates had been requested by adoptees and 503 parents sent in Contact Preference Forms, 391 indicated that they wanted direct contact, 29 wanted to be contacted through an intermediary, and 83 indicated that they preferred not to be contacted.10 The New Hampshire system, which was modeled on the one in Oregon, began issuing unamended birth certificates to adoptees in January 2005. Eight months after inception, 717 adoptees had requested their original birth certificates, 51 parents had sent in Contact Preference Forms, with 12 requesting that they not be contacted.11

  As with mothers, not all adoptees want to search or to be found. Some search because they have a powerful desire to know where they came from or why they were relinquished. They describe a feeling of emptiness and longing that they believe can be filled only by finding their mother, or both parents. Others simply have a natural curiosity about their family of origin—their genealogy and nationality—and a desire to parse out how they have been shaped by nurture and nature. Some are simply in search of medical information.

  Often mothers have attempted to pass on updated medical information but, as with most aspects of adoption, there has been no clear or uniform process to facilitate the transfer of this important information. It has been known for some time that many of the most common and deadly diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, are genetic. In 2004, the Surgeon General and the Department of Health and Human Services launched a Family History Initiative to encourage everyone to chart a family-health history. Regrettably, this is not possible for millions of adoptees.12

  I contacted the woman who is at the agency now. I told her I wanted to pass medical information. She said, “Oh, we have medical information.” I said, “You do?” She said, “Yes, we have that your mother and brother wore glasses for reading and your dad wore glasses all the time.” I said, “Well, that was true when I was sixteen. Twenty-two years have passed since that time. My mother has developed high blood pressure, heart disease, she had thyroid problems, she was also diabetic.” I mean, she had a number of problems. I said, “I cannot leave this world until I let my daughter know the truth. I have to know that she’s okay and I have to pass this medical information to her.” She said, “We just can’t do that. We can’t pass medical information. We have medical information.”

  —Pollie

  I don’t think a day went by that I didn’t at least think, “I wonder if she’s okay? I wonder how she is. I wonder if they take good care of her.” When her father was seventeen or eighteen, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease and at that point I worried that there could potentially be something hereditary there. Plus, his father was a brittle diabetic. I knew I had answered a lot of questions, and given them as much information as I had, as far as medical records and stuff like that. But, I mean, you’re asking a sixteen-year-old. What does a sixteen-year-old know about medical history?

  —Wendy

  Adoptees quite often begin searching as they reach a milestone in their life, such as marriage, the birth of a child, or the death of an adoptive parent. As they age, their heritage and genetic history may become more important to them. Often when contact is made there is an initial euphoria, which is sometimes referred to as the “honeymoon phase” of the reunion. One of the most powerful aspects of a reunion for adoptees is the experience of meeting, for the first time in their lives, someone who looks like them or laughs like them or has the same voice or gestures.

  I had signed up with Soundex International Reunion Registry and then kind of put it in the back of my head; I didn’t even think to change my address with them. One day I came home and there was a message from a lady with Soundex: “I’ve been tr
ying to track you down for two weeks. I think I’ve got some news you’ve been waiting a long time to hear.”

  I am going berserk. I knew what news they had for me; it had to be. It’s the only thing they could be calling me for. I don’t know what I’m going to do. With the time difference I can’t call until noon tomorrow; I’m going out of my mind. I hardly slept all night. I get into work and I am just watching the clock. At the stroke of noon I closed my door, picked up the phone, and called Soundex. They told me just a few things about her. She was living in Kansas.

  I dialed her number and she answered, and the next four minutes was nothing more than “Oh my God, I don’t believe it, oh my God, oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening.” Tears, the works. Unbelievable. We asked serious questions, we asked silly questions. I said, “Okay, tell me, how big are your boobs?” Because I was always totally flat as a kid. She starts laughing hysterically and she said, “I told my fiancé that was the first thing I was going to ask you.” I mean, she was just so happy to finally know who she was. She said she would just sit and stare in the mirror and go, “Who am I?”

  —Serena

  The day we met, I primped as if I was going on a first date. I wanted to look my very best for her but my legs were like jelly. I was staying across the street from where we were meeting and I could not walk over there. My sister-in-law had to drive me across the street and turn the car around so that I could get out on the passenger side next to the sidewalk. Of course, my daughter was sitting there scanning everyone. We knew each other instantly, because we look amazingly alike.

  I got a sense of the loss that adoption can bring when she held my face in her hands and I realized that she was looking at someone who looked like her for the first time in her life. I’ve always been surrounded by people who, if they don’t look like me, they walk like me, they have my quirks, the same sense of humor, and we all have this same voice. For the first time in her life, at the age of twenty-eight, she was looking at someone who looked like her and it was overwhelming.

  —Mary III

  It is not uncommon for adoptees so lose interest after they have found the information they were seeking. Some of the women I interviewed described joyful reunions followed by a lot of contact, but said that after a while their child’s interest gradually waned. Some mothers saw this as a natural course of events. In other cases, mothers experienced considerable pain and turmoil because their child did not want to establish a relationship. These women felt like they had lost their child a second time.

  I got a phone call on a Saturday evening. I was having a little dinner party for my nephew, his college roommate, my sister, and my husband, and the phone rang. I picked up the phone in the kitchen and this young man said to me, “Is this Carolyn?” Well, most people call me Carol, so I thought it was somebody trying to sell me something. I said, “This is she.” He said, “Is this a good time to talk?” I said, “About what, sir?” He said, “About December 14, 1965.” I said, “Could I put you on hold for just a minute?”

  I went into the guest room and told my husband just to hang up the phone in the kitchen. I was in there for one and a half hours. My husband came in a few times and I gave him a hand motion that everything was fine. I have a brother who’s a Vietnam vet, need I say more, so my husband thought it was something to do with that.

  It was my son-in-law on the phone. When I hung up and came out, all my company had gone except for my sister and my husband. I told them who it was and my husband started crying, my sister started crying, and I was hysterical. I was just…you couldn’t even console me, I was so upset. It was just fear of the unknown. My daughter has always known she was adopted, but maybe five people in my life knew she existed. My father did not know, my own father. So it was very, very difficult.

  I called my son, who was at his girlfriend’s house, and I said, “I need to talk to you about something.” He was here in ten minutes. Now, you have to realize that my son, his whole life, wanted a brother or sister. When I was twenty-eight years old I had to have a hysterectomy for cervical cancer, so I never could get pregnant again.

  I told him. I was so hysterical. Telling him was the hardest thing. Telling my grandmother and my dad wasn’t as difficult, as emotional, as telling my son. But he was so good with it. I’m so proud of him. He was so accepting and understanding.

  The next day, I called my daughter and spent two hours on the phone talking. We planned on meeting that next Friday. Oh, God, I lost nine pounds. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, all I did was cry. It was just so emotional.

  When my daughter came to the door and I looked at her I said, “Oh, my God, you look just like my sister.” And my son said, “Mom, she looks just like you.” And she does. She looks just like me. We had a wonderful reunion. By the end of the evening, there were probably twenty-five people here. I called my friends. She called her brother, who’s also adopted. I mean, we had this wonderful, wonderful reunion.

  We were talking every day, then it went to maybe a couple of times a week, and then it sort of peters off, you know. But she got to meet my father. I’m so happy, because he has since passed away. And she met my grandmother, who has since passed away. So she got to meet all the really important people in my life.

  —Carolyn I

  He found me in 1999, when he was thirty-one years old. He found me, I think, for medical information and curiosity. I thought that if he wanted to find me he would want to know me, but that wasn’t true. It’s been heartbreaking. I did not have other children. I never had someone who looked like me and he looks like me. To see that is so overwhelming. It’s just…I can’t describe it…it just kind of blows your whole world.

  I wanted so much to just hold him and he didn’t understand that at all. That isn’t why he found me; he had a mother. He wasn’t going to upset her. We’ve had some tough, tough times. I’ve had to do a lot of grieving. I’ve had to grieve all the initial garbage, and I’ve had to grieve all my dreams and hopes of wanting to be a mom. I guess I never realized how much I wanted all of that. I still grieve. It’s easier now, but it’s such a loss and it doesn’t heal. It’s never going to heal, ever.

  My husband is so tired of seeing me hurt. He and my mother just want to say to me, “For crying out loud, why don’t you just walk away from it, just forget about it. Quit trying. Quit making gifts for him. Quit. Walk away.” They’re baffled that I can’t do that; they’re just baffled. They don’t understand. Most people don’t.

  People don’t get the depth of our connection with the child. They can’t believe it. When I first met my son as a man, I was so overwhelmed and just shocked at how much I loved him, the first sight of him. I can’t put a name on it but boy, it’s there. You know that baby’s yours. You know he’s from you. There’s some connection there that does not break. I don’t know what to call it, but it’s there.

  My marriage has been affected. Since reunion, my husband’s gotten much more distant. At first he was real empathetic and close, but it goes on and on and on and takes so much of my emotional energy. He feels shafted and helpless. There’s nothing he can say or do. So it’s had a huge effect. I guess the question would be, Is there any part of my life where it hasn’t affected me? I doubt there is.

  —Glory

  A common reason for adoptees’ not wanting a reunion, or backing away, is anxiety over conflicting loyalties to their adoptive parents. Perhaps the saddest reason that adoptees cite for not wanting a reunion is the belief that their mother has already rejected them by her act of surrender. A few of the women I interviewed located their adult child only to find that the child did not want to meet them. But sometimes adoptees who do not initially desire contact change their minds with time.

  I called the Crittenton League and the woman said, “I will contact his parents. I cannot give you the information, but I can tell him you’re looking for him.” A few days later, she called back. I was so excited. But she said, “He doesn’t want to meet you.” I was devastated.
I was completely devastated and my daughter, who very much wanted to meet her half brother, was very disappointed, too.

  Then about two and a half years ago, my daughter called me and she was crying. I thought she had a fight with her boyfriend. She said, “Mom, guess what? My brother wants to meet me.” I guess this communication had been going on for about a month. She said he sounded really nice and they had a lot of similar interests. They’re both artsy, music-y type people. Then she said, “Mom, he wants to meet you. He and I are going to arrange everything.”

  My son said he had a great life but his personality was so different from his adoptive family’s. Once he started to meet all of us, I think it made him understand where he came from. He’s very outgoing; he’s a singer. It has just been wonderful. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would see him again.

  —Charlenea

  I didn’t give myself permission to search for my daughter until after my dad died. He died twenty years ago and one of the first things that came to my mind is it might be safe now to look for my daughter. It still took me a while to get up the courage. I was really afraid. Maybe I was afraid of the rejection. I don’t know what it is that scares you.

  I called Catholic Welfare. I wrote a letter and they sent that letter to her. She sent one back to me, through them, telling me about her life and included a few pictures. The letter concluded with her saying that she wanted to thank me for giving her life and for giving her to the family she had, and that she had never made room for me in that life and she hoped that I could accept that. In other words, this would be our last correspondence.

  I could accept that. I knew now that she was happy and I knew that things had worked out. As much as I would have loved to have been able to meet her, at least I could see a picture of her and I knew that everything was okay.