The Baby Laundry for Unmarried Mothers

by Angela Patrick

  ‘No. I mean it wouldn’t be ideal, obviously,’ he agreed. ‘We don’t have our own home yet, for one thing. But we’d manage. I’m sure we would. How hard can it be, after all?’

  He had a twinkle in his eye and I loved him for it. John and Emmie had just had their first child, a little girl – she’d been born on the day after our first anniversary, in fact – and it had been both moving and funny to see how Michael was with her. As an only child, he’d had little experience of babies, and just as I’d been when I had Paul, he was very nervous. He’d eyed her warily, then picked her up as if she was a piece of expensive china or an alien – one who might do something terrifying at any moment. I no longer had that beginner’s anxiety. And the thought of being related to this perfect tiny human had not only filled me with joy, but also confidence, because holding her and caring for her felt as natural as breathing. Yes, Michael was right: it wouldn’t be ideal for us to start our family just yet. Though it would be a struggle financially, as far as ‘managing’ went, I had no worries whatsoever. We’d be fine. I said so.

  ‘And can you imagine how thrilled my parents would be?’ He rolled his eyes. We both knew how much it would mean to them. ‘To get their hands on their first grandchild?’ He smiled broadly at the thought. ‘Trust me, you’d be having to beat my mum off with a stick!’

  This was to be a thought, and an image, that would stay with me for a long time. What a wonderful notion – to have a baby who’d be so loved by all the family.

  ‘It’s all hypothetical anyway,’ I said, though I’m not sure whom I was trying to reassure most. ‘It’s not like it’s a given . . .’

  ‘Exactly,’ Michael agreed. ‘So we’ll not worry about it, eh?’ I nodded. He stood up. ‘That’s henceforth the official plan, then,’ he said. ‘If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Qué será, será. Lap of the gods. Come on. Let’s go hire that scooter and get this holiday properly underway.’

  But I didn’t return home pregnant, and I wasn’t sure what to feel. I stopped worrying about it, certainly, once we’d had this conversation; instead I’d thrown myself into having a lovely time. Though it did cross my mind at odd moments – we were on holiday, so it felt romantic – it would be a lie to say I had started consciously hoping that it would happen. The timing wasn’t right, and we both accepted that quite happily.

  Even so, when my period came just after we returned, I felt an unexpectedly powerful pang of disappointment. It would have been nice, we both agreed. It wasn’t to be, but it would have been so nice to start our family. I went back to taking the pill, as per our original plan, and we put all our energies into saving for the house we both so wanted. Once we’d achieved that, we agreed, we’d start trying properly. I’d get pregnant, I remember thinking confidently, soon enough. After all, I thought, look how easily it had happened to me before.

  But God, it seemed, wasn’t done punishing me.

  We’d found our new home the following summer, in the pretty little town of Tenterden in Kent. It was a gorgeous mock Georgian house, detached, with three bedrooms. Once we’d moved in, I stopped taking the pill, just as we’d planned. I had a new job as well, working for a local branch of Lloyd’s Bank. While Michael commuted up to the City each day, I settled into a slower, more suburban existence, and dreamed happily of the family we were about to create.

  But it didn’t happen. 1968 became 1969 and then, somehow, it was the seventies; 1970 passed and 1971. Though we couldn’t have been happier with our lives and each other, I was becoming increasingly convinced that the events from my past were conspiring to deny me a second chance at motherhood. I was now twenty-eight years old and we’d been trying to have a baby for four years. Nothing had happened. I had yet to conceive.

  As a consequence I was becoming more and more distressed. It seemed such a terrible waste for this to happen to us, and so unfair. I tried to be rational. These things did happen; they could happen to anyone. It was probably just random bad luck. But I couldn’t help seeing it as a punishment, which felt so wrong. We weren’t bad people. Did we deserve this? And even if I did, I’d paid my price, hadn’t I? As a consequence, I felt angry and increasingly bitter about having to give up Paul. I also felt such guilt and such sadness for Michael. He’d taken me on, and I’d failed him.

  By the spring of 1972, on advice from my doctor, Michael and I were being tested to see if they could work out the reason why we were having such difficulty conceiving. It seemed my whole life was now dominated by having one test or another, and then walking to the doctor’s, as I was this morning, only to be told the next lot of bad news.

  I was feeling particularly low, having been out at a function the night before with some close friends of ours, David and Joan. We’d married at the same time – David and Michael had been each other’s best man – and Joan already had two little ones under three. She had been really upset, she’d confided tearfully when we were both in the ladies’, on realising she might be pregnant for a third time. ‘I can’t bear it!’ she’d cried. ‘I really don’t think I can bear it! If I am, I’m putting my head in the bloody gas oven!’

  I’d said nothing, of course – or, rather, I made all the right noises – but now, with my GP, who was a kind and caring man, I couldn’t seem to stop my tears from flowing. There had been yet another test, yet another frustratingly inconclusive result. If they couldn’t work out why I wasn’t getting pregnant, what hope, realistically, did Michael and I have?

  But then my doctor shocked me. ‘Angela,’ he said gently. ‘I’ve been thinking about your options. Have you and Michael thought about adoption at all?’

  The question brought me up short, the word ‘adoption’ hitting me with a jolt. When you carry around a secret as big as mine, it makes you feel jittery any time anything to do with it is mentioned. What was he saying? Did he know something about me giving up Paul? I shook my head, braced for what he might be about to tell me. Of course he didn’t mean that, I told myself. He couldn’t. He meant us adopting, surely? He did.

  ‘I have another patient,’ he explained, ‘a young girl who’s pregnant – impossible circumstances, very sad, very difficult. She’s only nineteen, you see. And the child’s father is married. She has decided that she wants to give the child up to be adopted.’ He paused, letting me digest this before continuing. ‘And it occurred to me that, potentially at least, we have, in you and Michael, ideal adoptive parents. Which is why I thought I’d ask you if you wanted to discuss it with him, give it some thought.’

  I nodded, trying to clear my head of all the thoughts and associations his words had unleashed. How cruel an irony that would be! Potentially we could end up adopting the child of a young girl who’d found herself in almost the same circumstances as I’d been in, while my own child – my flesh and blood – was lost to me. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It’s such a lot to take in, such a lot to think about.’

  I wondered, as I spoke, if he’d think and feel differently had he known about Paul. Perhaps not. He was such a decent man, so non-judgemental. But did this mean he held out no hope for us conceiving naturally? Was he already that sure we’d reached the end of the line?

  ‘Not at all,’ he reassured me. ‘It’s just another option to consider, as I say. And there’s absolutely no rush to make a decision here. The baby isn’t due until October. And you’ll obviously need to go home and discuss it with Michael before we could even think about taking things further. It would have to be something you’re both committed to, obviously.’

  So I did go home and discuss it with Michael and, tentatively, we agreed that it might be the right thing to do. Heartbreaking as it was to face the reality of our situation, difficult as it was to accept the idea that the child would not be ours biologically, we both felt to miss this opportunity might condemn us to a lifetime of childlessness. Time was passing. We had to be realistic.

  ‘And it’s nurture not nature, remember,’ my GP reassured us, having got us both back to discu
ss the matter further the following week. He’d just given us some more background – she was an office junior, and he was a coach driver – the implication being their lives were worlds away from ours. ‘So you don’t need to worry that the child won’t feel like yours. It will.’

  ‘I know that,’ I said, a new idea forming in my mind. What did the couple who had adopted Paul think about me, in that respect? Did they take a view? Did they think ill of me for being the sort of girl who ‘got into trouble’? Had Paul been a girl, might they have worried that she, too, had the potential for ‘going off the rails’? It was such a grim thing to think. I felt a rush of sadness for this child’s mother, and a powerful empathy for the horrible, life-changing, desperate thing she would soon do. It was impossible to detach myself from it.

  ‘And you two will make such wonderful parents,’ the doctor added warmly. ‘I can’t think of two people more perfect to adopt this baby, which I know matters to her greatly. She’ll be so relieved to hear you’ve said yes.’

  It was kind of him, but also so hard to hear.

  I left the surgery that day with very mixed emotions. On the one hand I now had something tangible to hold on to. Our GP had explained that it was a straightforward process, and all we needed to do now was to engage a solicitor. Once the baby was born all the papers would be drawn up for the adoption process to take place straight away. Moreover, we’d have the child almost immediately after birth, so we’d would be in a position, as he pointed out, to bond with him or her in almost the same way a natural parent would.

  On the other hand, I couldn’t help feeling I was about to be a party to something that girl would have wished not to have happened. I tried not to dwell on it, but it was so hard. I kept thinking about the birth: what she was about to have to go through, and then the agony of immediately having to give her baby to us. Thank God for those eight weeks I’d had with Paul, I thought. Thank God I had the memory of them safely locked away.

  The following few months were happy ones for me. I not only began to accept that I would not conceive naturally, but I also began to look forward to having the baby we both so wanted. But eight months into the girl’s pregnancy, we were dealt another blow. My GP telephoned me at home one morning, and delivered the news himself.

  ‘There’s no easy way to say this, Angela,’ he told me, ‘so no preamble. The fact is that she’s changed her mind. She’s decided to keep her baby. I’m so sorry. I know this will be such a blow to you both.’

  I cried and cried then, sitting at home alone, crying my heart out. To be so close and for this to happen felt like the cruellest of things. There was no one to blame here. It was just life, and we’d have to deal with it. And we persuaded ourselves it was all for the best. What else could we do? It wasn’t meant to be, we agreed. It wasn’t right. And it was surely best for the child that its mother was going to keep it. In my heart I admired her for her strength and determination, even though I couldn’t help but envy her ability to make that choice. Yes, the world had changed since I’d had to part with Paul, thank God, but it was a brave decision and a hard road to travel nevertheless; although it was the early seventies, single mothers were still vilified. So how could I be anything but supportive of her courage?

  As for ourselves, we’d have to put on a brave face and carry on. Qué será, será, as Michael had said all those years ago, even if it meant I was never to fall pregnant again. It certainly looked that way. Another year passed, another round of tests failed to uncover reasons. By 1974 I had come to accept the inevitable, when surgery for a tilted womb made me begin to wonder what damage my previous pregnancy and the birth might have done.

  Shortly after that I gave up hoping. Another night, another function – this time with other friends, Jim and Jean. They were the only couple we knew who were still childless like us. My secret burned in me by now, a constant corrosive force in my life. I had had a child; I had voluntarily given him to others. Was that it, now? Had that been my one chance at motherhood? And what about Michael? He’d married me, accepting me and the past that came with me. When Jean announced her pregnancy that night I had to flee the room. Now it was me sitting in the ladies’, sobbing my heart out.

  My punishment, it seemed, must continue.

  Chapter Sixteen

  St Andrew’s Catholic Church stands on the busy A28 Ashford Road, just a short walk from Tenterden’s High Street and town centre. It’s small, as churches go, and not particularly inspiring to look at, having been built post-war in a redbrick, utilitarian style. But like any church, it was a place of worship, of gentle light, of still air. Just entering St Andrew’s always gave me a sense of peace, calm and comfort. Despite feeling that my faith had handed me such cruel justice, I could not give up on it.

  So 1975 found me praying. I would regularly come here, though not for services; I never went to mass. The Catholic community was a small and close-knit one, and I didn’t feel a part of it any more. I would just come to sit and pray, to have some quiet time.

  Michael and I had recently returned from a holiday in Ireland. While we were there we’d spent some time staying with my cousin Mary, who was the loveliest, kindest and saintliest person I have ever known.

  Mary knew about my difficulties conceiving, and spending time with her was good for my soul. But she also told me that if I prayed to St Anthony and Our Lady, she felt sure they would listen. I had no difficulty coming to this church and following her advice, not just because her own faith was so strong and persuasive, but also because, with everything physical and medical having been done now, I truly felt my only hope of getting pregnant again would be through divine intervention.

  Cousin Mary didn’t know about Paul, of course. So she didn’t know how strongly I felt the weight of God’s displeasure. But if God loved me, then surely He’d realise that I had atoned for my sins and was worthy of forgiveness by now?

  My baby, my little Paul, would have been twelve. No, not would have been, was twelve. Twelve years old: a young boy on the cusp of adolescence. Was he tall or short? Was he big-boned or skinny? Was he sporty? Artistic? Full of confidence? Shy? I tried to imagine him, to visualise him in my mind’s eye. Where did he live? What did he love? What were his favourite things now? How much did he know about where he came from? Who I was? Did he fret about it? Wonder about it? Think nothing of it? Did he ever pause to wonder where his lovely olive skin came from? Did he want to know the origins of that glorious head of hair?

  But all my imaginings were just that – things I conjured up to keep him real for me. I knew nothing at all about him in the flesh, did I? No, that wasn’t true. I did. I knew the blood that ran in his young veins was my blood. That the feet that kicked footballs, the legs and arms that hauled him up tree trunks, the hands that carefully formed the words he wrote in his schoolbooks, carried me with them, because they carried my genes. So what if my imaginings didn’t quite match the reality? Those young limbs, that heart and soul, were connected to me.

  These thoughts, and the attendant hurt, were for me only, however. On the outside, the lack of a child of our own notwithstanding, our lives were full and happy. Since giving up work to improve my chances of becoming pregnant, I had become a keen gardener and spent countless hours working on ours. I was also secretary of the local Conservative Association and an enthusiastic fundraiser and organiser of events. We had lovely friends, a full social life, lots of blessings to count, but there was still this huge void that I needed to fill.

  I didn’t want to replace Paul – I could never replace him – I just wanted to be a mother again. I wanted that so badly. I had all this maternal love inside me and nowhere to bestow it. How could God not see that and forgive me?

  ‘Please,’ I prayed. ‘Please God. Let me have a baby. Please God. Haven’t I paid my price now?’

  By this time, Michael and I had begun an official adoption process with the local council. The law had changed, making private adoptions a thing of the past, and we had to go through a long comp
lex series of interviews and screenings in order to be accepted as potential parents. It was a comfort to be moving forward, but despite my outward acceptance that this was to be our future, in my heart I simply couldn’t give up hope that we might still have a child of our own.

  I had plenty of things with which to occupy myself. We had moved again, to a house that was just around the corner; one we’d both fallen in love with long ago. It was another Georgian property – a real one this time – that stood in several acres, on a rise, at the top of a long drive. We would walk past it often, commenting on how forlorn it looked, and discuss all the things we’d do to make it lovely once again, should we be lucky enough to own it.

  Naturally, when it came onto the market, we’d been to view it, only to find it was in an even worse state than we’d thought. But we’d seen beyond that and bought it, packed our belongings, leaving behind the bedrooms that had never seen babies, and set to work on our new home with vigour. It was an enormous project and, with Michael still working in the City, much of the hard manual work fell to me, but I didn’t mind. If nothing else, at thirty-two I was still young, fit and able. Now we had a realistic hope of adopting a baby, I had a deadline to work to, and I was determined to meet it. If we were accepted as parents, I wanted our home to be ready.

  And there, at least, my prayers were answered. In the spring of 1976, having been formally approved to adopt, we were told that the council had a baby for us that was due in November. I continued my renovations with renewed energy.

  And then, in mid-April, I missed my period.

  I’m going mad, I thought. I’m having a phantom pregnancy – that’s what it is. It might sound ridiculous, but that the pregnancy could be real didn’t once enter my head. After being unable to conceive for nearly a decade, it didn’t seem possible. Instead, I felt quite sure it was my body playing tricks. I was so convinced of this, after being obsessed with getting pregnant for such a long time, that I didn’t say a word about it to Michael.