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Unfortunately, my story is not unique. Many young girls, perhaps as many as 1.5 million young girls/women lost their newborn babies to adoption in the three decades between the end of WWII and the legalization of abortion in 1973. In fact, so many unmarried mothers lost their children that those years are now being referred to as The Adoption Holocaust or The Great Baby Scoop Era. My story is only one of many heartbreaking tales; for 33 years, I carried my pain alone and in silence. In 2003 I found my voice; I will no longer be silenced. |
My background:
I grew up in a middle class neighborhood in west Philadelphia with my parents and two sisters; I was the middle child. My parents were very old world. Both were the first generation born, in this country, of Italian immigrant parents. My dad, (Nicholas) Nicky, worked as a butcher and my mom, (Angelina) Kitty, was a housewife. Contrary to popular stereotype of the Italian macho man, it was my mother who ran our household. My father's responsibility was to provide a home for his family and to pay the bills. In general, my mother took care of everything and everyone else.
As a young man my father was quite handsome. Women threw themselves at him. Besides good looks, he had a steady income and his own car. Everywhere he went, he seemed to know someone. He also loved to dance. In addition to his other attributes, dancing was one of the main qualities that attracted my mother because she also loved to dance. My father married my mother, mainly, because she was a "good girl." He had his way with many women but not with her. She wore her virginity proudly. To my father, this was the quality a man looked for when taking a wife. For both my parents, a girl's virginity on her wedding night was extremely important.
Throughout my childhood I remember my mom being the predominant parent, she made most of the family decisions. As a strict disciplinarian, she usually doled out the spankings and punishments. She wasn't the nurturing type, she was verbally abusive and didn't encourage us. Pointing out our shortcomings would teach us the error of our ways, so she called us stupid when we did something wrong and was always comparing us to other children who were smarter than us. So I didn't grow up with a lot of confidence. In every aspect of her personality she was strict and unyielding. There was a right way and a wrong way. Because my mother always cared about others' opinions, she devoted herself to showing all aspects of her life in the proper light whether home, husband and children. Everything had to be perfect, or at least appear to be, because appearances were everything.
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| Denise in 1969 |
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The events that changed the course of my life:
The year was 1969; I was 17 years old and in my junior year of high school when I became pregnant. I had really only one best friend, Bernadette, we were inseparable and we were hippies. Bernadette and I enthusiastically embraced the social revolution and considered ourselves part of the counter culture. My mother didn't understand my generation and she showed no interest in understanding the changes taking place, world wide, during the 1960's. For example, when I tried to tell my mother that things were changing, especially with sex, that girls weren't thought of badly if they had sex before marriage, she couldn't accept it. She told me, "Mark my words. Things will NEVER change that much. Sex before marriage will never be acceptable. It's been that way since the beginning of time. A decent man would never marry a girl who lets him have his way. That will never change. It doesn't matter what anyone tells you, believe me, that will never change." Then, she would tell me the story about how my father tried to have his way with her but she never gave in, not one inch. |
Bernadette and I hung out in Rittenhouse Square, the city’s big hippie gathering place. One Saturday afternoon, we stopped into a diner off the square for a muffin when two guys came in. One of them kept flirting with me. I was smitten by his good looks, tight jeans and shoulder-length strawberry blond hair. Larry was slightly older than me. Out of high school, he was a local rock band's drummer. Since he wasn't from the area, he was crashing at a friends place in West Philly. He was hot, so I gave him my phone number. When he called me, we made plans, I was to meet him at his friends place. We hung out listening to music, talking and smoking some pot. After Larry finally kissed me, we ended up in the bedroom. I thought I was in love. He was so cool. No one had ever made me feel that way before. Technically, I don't think I was a virgin. I had tried having sex once before but I wasn’t sure anything happened. It was over in less than a minute. With Larry, things were different - very different. He and I had two dates. At this point in my 17 year old life, I had experienced sexual intercourse perhaps three times.
My period was due the week after our second date but it didn’t come. Larry didn’t call that week, the next nor the third week. Still not getting my period, I was beginning to worry about the possibility of being pregnant. Bernadette tried to assure me that I wasn’t pregnant. She told me it wasn’t easy to get pregnant - her older sister had been trying to get pregnant for years. Bernadette was sexually active, didn’t use protection, had erratic periods and wasn’t pregnant. My best friend told me to relax but I found it difficult not to think about it, so I called Larry. When I told him I had missed my period, his response was, "So, what do you want me to do about it?" I was taken aback. I told him I was worried, but didn’t expect him to marry me or anything like that. I said that I heard it was possible to get an abortion in New York - maybe he could help me. Larry said, "Well, how do I know it's mine?" I told him he was the only boy I had been with. When he asked me how he could be sure of that, I knew he didn’t care for me. Suddenly, I felt the need to save face, after a brief silence I said, "Ya know what? Never mind. Forget it. I don’t need your help, I’ll be fine without you." He said, "Ah...Okay." I said, "Good-bye." I hung up the phone and never saw or talked to Larry again.
There was only one thing I could do - ignore it - and hope that I wasn’t pregnant. Rhetorically, my mother asked if I had gotten my period. She knew that I hadn’t, so I told her the truth. She waited about a week before asking me again. This time she asked me if I had anything to be worried about. Indignantly, I told her "No way!" I wasn’t about to admit to something that would get me in big trouble, especially since the possibility existed that Bernadette was right, I might not be pregnant. However, when I started to get sick for no apparent reason, I heard my mother talking to my father, she said, "Nicky, something's wrong with that kid, I'm going to take her to the doctors."
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My pregnancy is confirmed:
My mother made an appointment with her doctor for my first visit to a gynecologist. After a brief internal exam, he said, "You're pregnant." As I laid there with my feet still in the stirrups, I began to cry. The doctor said, "Well, what did you expect? If you play with fire you're gonna get burned." I didn't realize right then that this was the attitude I was going to encounter from that point on. I was young, unmarried and pregnant. It was my fault, and only my fault, that I became pregnant. I was told, "Get dressed." By the time I arrived in the doctor's office, my mother already knew. She was sitting in a chair in front of his desk holding her head, shaking and crying. Not wanting to be noticed, I stood in the back of the office. I didn't know if she saw me or not, but I couldn't go near her. She was inconsolable. Through her sobs, I could hear her repeating, "Oh my God! Oh my God! What are we going to do?" She mentioned my father and how he was going to take the news, she grew visibly more upset at the thought of telling him. The doctor tried talking to her but she was too upset to focus. He gave her a pill to calm her down. Within minutes, she started to regain her composure. Once she was able to hear him, the doctor asked her if she would ever consider adoption. I could get a leave of absence from school, go into a maternity home, and have the baby secretly. No one would have to know. The home would arrange the adoption and school me so after I have the baby I'd be able to return to school and graduate with my class. My mother's whole demeanor changed. Within those few minutes and without ever asking me, the fate of my baby and the events that would change the course of my life, were decided.
I remained silent in the back of the office, they never even looked my way, let alone asked me how I felt about putting my baby up for adoption. I only said one thing, as we were leaving the doctors office, I asked, "Could we have one of those pills for my father?" |
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My father's reaction:
My father didn't' take the news well, not at all, I never saw him so enraged. He paced back and forth, looking at me from head to toe as if he didn't know what this thing was that stood before him. As he paced his nostrils flared and he repeatedly clenched and unclenched his fist. His eyes, that never left me, were filled with contempt; his rage was just beginning to build. At this point Mr. and Mrs. Brown arrived. Mr. and Mrs. Brown were good friends of my parents, my mother asked them to come over for moral support.
My father ignored the Browns arrival, he just kept pacing back and forth, he didn't take his eyes off of me for a second nor did I take my eye off of him although I tried not to look at his face. He started to curse at me in Italian and for emphasis he would repeat the curse in English. He called me a "puttana," a whore; then he asked if the baby was white. That shocked my mother. She said, "Oh Nicky, of course it's white!!" and looked at me for confirmation. I knew how they felt about a white girl being with a black man, so the question really stung. It was my father's way of showing me just how much disdain he felt for me at that moment.
That's when Mr. Brown intervened. He tried to calm my father down, "Come Nicky, sit down" but my father didn't want to sit and the suggestion made him madder. He continued to pace and continued to become more upset, we all feared the explosion that was sure to come. My mother tried to reassure him by telling him she had a solution to "the problem, but she was just making things worse. Each time she said something about "the baby" you could actually see the realization of my pregnancy sinking into my fathers mind by the changing expressions on his face. Then it happened; he exploded.
With a raised fist he started to lunge towards me, he said, "I'll fix our problem right now. I'll give her one punch in the belly...I'll take care of it." My mother yelled, "No, Nicky don't!" Mr. Brown jumped up putting himself between me and my dad. He tried to present a different perspective to my father, "Look Nicky, it could be a lot worse. She could be lying in some back ally, dead, from an abortion." My father replied he would rather that be the case. The whole time I just stood there, rigid, up against the kitchen wall. Needless to say, my father refused to take the pill we got for him at the doctor's office.
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| Denise in 1969 |
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St. Vincent's Home for Unwed Mothers and Orphanage:
After the school year ended, I was sent to live with my cousin, Barbara, and her husband, Joe at the Jersey shore. I didn't mind living with Barbara and Joe. The plan was I would live with them until the maternity home could take me in. I certainly didn't feel comfortable being around my own family. This upheaval was affecting all of us. I felt my presence only served to remind everyone what I had done.
On October 1, 1969 I was sent to St.Vincent's Home for Unwed Mothers and Orphanage in south-west Philadelphia to live and be schooled until my baby's birth. I would give birth in the hospital attached to St.Vincent's living quarters. I didn't like being in St. Vincent's, I wasn't use to sleeping and eating in strange places with strange people. The furnishings were old and showed signs of wear. The floors were linoleum tile and the walls sported only religious icons. I was assigned one of the private cells, which I was thankful for, however, it was very small and stark. Just a single bed, a dresser, one lamp and a crucifix hanging above the bed on the painted cinder block walls. It wasn't a warm, homey environment. There were three floors dedicated to housing the inmates and each floor had it's own community living room where the inmates would congregate. Ours was lined with chairs, had a TV and stereo, plus a few tables where the girls gathered to play cards, Hearts was the game everyone played. My first night there I was sitting in the community room, off to the side, by myself, listening to a conversation the other girls were having, they were talking mostly about the fathers of their babies. I felt bad because I couldn't claim that the father of my baby was my boyfriend. Then one girl said something about her keeping her baby. This was the first time I ever heard that the possibility existed where one of us could keep her child. I was shocked and said, "I didn't know we were allowed to keep our babies!" She looked at me like I was stupid, she said, "It's your baby isn't it?" She didn't wait for an answer, she went on to explain, "no one is taking my baby. I don't care what they say, they can't have MY baby." I took an instant dislike to her; I asked, "Then what are you doing in here?" She said that her parents expect her to give her baby up for adoption but she said they had a surprise coming, she said the only way they were getting her baby was over her dead body." I went back to my room, I laid on the bed, I looked around my cell and I began to cry. In an attempt to comfort my baby I rubbed my swollen belly, I cried until I drifted off to sleep. Once I learned how to play Hearts I felt a little more like I fit in. My week days were filled with going to class, and doing assigned chores, at night we'd play cards and one of the girls taught me how to knit so I made a blanket for my parents' bed. St. Vincent's had a fair once a year to raise money for the orphanage, they sold things that the inmates made in the craft room; the nuns asked for volunteers to make ceramic knick-knacks and paint the pieces for the sale. I volunteered and enjoyed doing something creative but I also liked spending time alone in my cell for I knew that each day that passed was bringing me closer to the day I dreaded, the day my baby would be taken away.
While making my bed the morning of December 22, 1969, I felt a sharp pain in my back that traveled around to my stomach, so I was sent to the clinic for an examination. They told me the baby had dropped into position. I was scared! I really didn't know what to expect of childbirth. I knew once I gave birth, my baby would be taken away from me and was going to be put up for adoption. Even though I knew this from the beginning, something had changed. No one warned me that by the time my baby was born I was going to have fallen in love with him. By early evening, I was feeling more uncomfortable and was sent over to the hospital. The day I dreaded for the past nine months was close at hand.
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| Side note:
It's important to me that you all understand, in the beginning, when the doctor first suggested we put my baby up for adoption, why I didn't protest. At that time my main concern was self-preservation. What I had done was unprecedented within my family, so I really had no way of knowing how my parents were going to react, however, I was sure the news wasn't going to be received by gentle, loving, understanding parents. I was never asked how I felt about putting my baby up for adoption, I wasn't given any choice, I felt like I had to accept their decision, I didn't feel like I had the right to protest, moreover, in the beginning I wasn't able to grasp the reality of a baby growing inside me.
However, as time went on something unexpected happened; I fell in love with my baby and I started to become non-complacent with the decision to put my baby up for adoption. I found myself starting to entertain thoughts of raising him. I eventually approached the subject with all the adults around me but everyone of them dismissed my feelings. Every one told me I had no idea what it takes to raise a child, they all said I couldn't do it. I was told that keeping my baby would be selfish and not the best thing for the baby, I was reminded about my reputation and in the end; I was under the legal age to enter into a contract, ultimately the decision was not mine to make.
I was made to feel deeply ashamed for becoming pregnant and I was keenly aware of the effects my pregnancy had on each member of my family. I never saw my mother cry as much as she did during those nine months and it was hard knowing that each time she cried it was my fault. My older sister and I weren't close at that time and this just pushed us further apart, I knew she was very angry with me. My younger sister and I were very close. It was difficult for me to see the disappointment, confusion and fear in her eyes for she was only nine years old at the time, she didn't fully understand what was going on, she didn't understand why I had to go away for so long and it broke my heart whenever I saw her face. My father withdrew within himself, whenever I saw him he hardly spoke directly to me and it was very obvious that he couldn't look at me. In addition, my mother never missed the opportunity to remind me how hard he was taking it and to point out that he began to drink heavily after finding out I was pregnant.
So, at seventeen years of age I found myself to be responsible for my mother's pain, my father's excessive drinking, my older sister hating me for ruining our family and for causing so much turmoil for my little sister, in addition to being aware about bringing a baby into the world, a child that I could not raise.
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The birth of my son:
Because I was the only one in labor that evening, I was alone in a room with only a large clock. I was told to time my contractions. Nothing took my mind off the growing pain. Nervous, I called the nurses to give me something for the pain. They told me my labor had not progressed enough. They told me to relax. They told me I could have fifteen hours of labor ahead of me. Then, I was left alone. I wasn't sure I was going to survive this, I wished I had some company.
Labor freaked me out. It's a pain I can't explain and was like nothing I had ever experienced. I was not an easy patient. Eventually, after my almost constant calling out to the nurses for help, one of the two on duty decided to stay with me for awhile. She was nice. She tried to make me more comfortable by rubbing my back. As the pain grew they were able to give me a shot but all it did was make me groggy. I was told that I was taking short naps in between contractions; I was confused. Sometimes I'd wake up and the nurse would be gone again. Then I remember screaming, "the baby is coming now!" The nurses ran to my aid and discovered the pressure I felt was my water about to break. The nurses laughed at my mistake, but I saw no humor in it.
After my water broke, things got worse and the pain was almost unbearable. Now, there was a lot of activity around me, giving me shots and monitoring the baby's progress. I asked the nurse who was rubbing my back if she had any children. She said, "No." I told her, "Don't. This hurts like hell." Again, she laughed. I said, "I mean it, I don't know how anyone could have more than one kid." Things just kept getting worse...I remembering making a vow. I swore I'll never have another baby. The nurse assured me I'd change my mind. I didn't; I never did have another child.
I heard the nurses talking about the doctor, since it was so close to Christmas they were hoping he'd get to the hospital in time. I didn't care, at that point dying would be a relief. I was still falling into unconsciousness between contractions. Then one of the nurses shook me, she said " The doctor has arrived," as they wheeled me into the delivery room.
Just before they put a gas mask over my face, a nurse commented, "Look at how much hair the baby has." That's the last I remember of active labor. At 1:48 AM, on December 23, 1969, I gave birth to a beautiful, healthy 6 lbs 2¼ oz baby boy - whose medical record was stamped "suitable for placement." |
After the birth of my son:
I woke up lying in the delivery room, my feet still in the stirrups, I was alone and still groggy from the gas; I was disoriented not sure what had happened; was it over? I put my hand on my belly, it was empty, my baby was gone. I called out and a nurse came in to tell me to be quiet. I asked her what I had, then I slipped into unconsciousness again. When I awoke I called out again, she returned, again I asked what I had, she said, "I told you - a boy," and left the room. Again, I felt my empty belly, I called out, "Nurse." When she returned she sounded very annoyed, "What is it now?" I asked her where my baby was and she said the doctor was examining him. I asked if the baby was okay, she said, "Yes, he’s fine" and left the room. I never saw him or heard him cry. Eventually I was taken back to my room....
It was two days before Christmas, my favorite holiday and the first time I would spend it alone. I wanted to go home so bad, I wanted this to be over; I was told I would forget and I wanted to forget, oh god, how I wanted to forget. In those days we were required to spend 5 days in the hospital, so I had to lay there knowing my baby was somewhere in the same building but I wasn’t allowed to see him. As I laid in that hospital bed my whole body ached for my baby boy, he was all I could think about and every minute that passed was ticking away any chance I had to see him. Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer; I told the nurse I wanted to see him. She gave me the brush off, she said I had to get permission from the social worker and she didn't know if the social worker was in, many of the staff was on Christmas vacation. I remember becoming very upset and agitated, I told her I wasn’t going to leave the hospital without seeing MY baby, I suggested she start making phone calls because I was going to see my baby, one way or the other, before I left.
Then a woman came to see me, she said she was a social worker, I thought she was there to talk to me about seeing my son but she said she didn’t have that authority. She was there to find out what I wanted to name my son. I was taken totally off guard; no one told me I could name him. I got very excited at the proposition but I hadn’t picked out any names so I needed a minute to think, I wanted it to be special. Apparently I was taking too much time for her, she dismissed the importance of my naming him by telling me, "It really doesn’t matter, his adoptive parents are going to change it anyway, it’s just so we can baptize him." Again, I felt deflated and marginalized; to me it mattered, it mattered a lot! She tried making stupid suggestions like naming him after my father or the baby’s father, both suggestions I dismissed for obvious reasons. I felt her presence as I thought, I needed to make a decision soon before I lost my chance because she said if I didn’t have a name picked out that they could name him for me but I wanted to name him...so I named him James Paul Marconi after James Paul McCartney since The Beatles had always been a great source of joy for me. |
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At some point my social worker called me, she said I could see my baby but I couldn't hold him...I agreed. I agreed because I didn't want to hold him, god forgive me but at the time I knew that holding him would make it harder on me, I felt my heart would literally break if I did, so just seeing him was fine to me.
Alone, I found my way to the nursery, he was the only baby there so as soon as I saw him I knew he was mine. He was lying there all wrapped up, lying on his stomach; the instant I saw him I fell apart. I began to sob as I pawed on the glass, I couldn't believe how beautiful he was. A nurse who was inside the nursery came out and told me I had to calm down. I couldn't do anything else but cry, so she told me to go back to my room. I think I ignored her, not purposely but there was nothing else in the world right then, nothing but my baby. She pulled at my arm, I tried to get free of her grip, I didn't have time to explain this to her. I needed to wipe my eyes, the tears were clouding my vision. The more she pulled the more frantic I became, the whole time I didn't take my eyes off my son, I knew these few seconds were going to be some of the most important in my life and I needed to imprint the image of him on my brain.
Again she told me to calm down and go back to my room...I begged her to let me stay, I told her I'd calm down, I pleaded with her to let me stay, "I'll clam down, I promise," but we both knew the likelihood of that happening was remote. I had only been there for a few minutes, I needed more time but the more she pulled on me the more desperate I became....then suddenly my son opened his eyes, he looked right at me, his little hand, which was in a loose fist, opened....it looked like he was waving to me, did he know? Was he saying good-bye?
Suddenly I stopped struggling with the nurse, I gasped, something inside me snapped. I knew what I had to do. I didn't even say good bye to him. I jerked my arm free from the nurse's grip and ran frantically back to my room. I called home, my mom answered. I was hysterical. I told her the adoption was off. I said, I couldn't do it. She reminded me of the promise we made to "those people", the prospective parents. I told her I didn't care about them. I began to bargain, to promise, to beg and to plead with her. I said, I'd do anything she asked if she would just let me come home with my baby. She tried to reason with me.
She said, "You have to finish school; how can you raise him? And I don't want to raise another kid, I'm getting too old for this." I reminded her that he was my baby so I would raise him but again she said I didn't know what I was talking about, she would have to take care of him when I was in school. "You wouldn't be able to go out with your friends, you would have to be home with him everyday after school and all weekend...." I told her, "I don't care about going out with my friends. I swear mom, I don't care about that." I told her I'd be good. "I'll do everything you tell me to do; please mom, please I can't leave him behind." "Oh, come on Denise, don't do this to me...we've gone to all this trouble...." I told her I didn't care, I can't do it. She said I wasn't listening. I wasn't. I kept telling her I couldn't do it. The adoption was off.
She continued trying to make me see her point of view by repeating all the reasons I'd heard for the past nine months about why raising my son wasn't a good idea. She reminded me, again, about my reputation and what the neighbors would think, I told her I didn't care about any of those things. She said, "Don't you want to get married someday and have a family? No decent man will marry you and no man wants to raise another man's child!" I didn't want to hear what she had to say, I heard it all before. All I kept telling her was I couldn't do it. All I could do was beg but we were at an impasse. The conversation was going nowhere so finally, in desperation, she said, "Your father and I will be right over to see you." I know they came to see me and I realize what a pivotal point this is in my story but as hard as I try I can't recall what happened when they arrived. I have only a vague recollection of my parents standing next to my bed; I see myself removed, I'm getting good at shutting down. The next thing I remember is, I'm sitting in the back seat of my father's car, my dad was driving and my mom was sitting next to him in the front seat; I was going home. I was going home without my baby.
Going home:
The silence in the car was deafening, I was hardly breathing, I didn't want them to know I was crying. I felt panic as we slowly drove from the parking lot. My stomach ached and my heart was beating wildly like the moment when one is faced with great danger. I was frantically searching my mind trying to think of a way to stop us from leaving. I could feel my heart breaking. I wanted to scream! I wanted to run from the car! I wanted to shake my mother, I wanted to know how her heart could be so cold, how she could care so little for her grandson? For me and MY baby? At that moment I hated her so much but I think I hated myself even more.
However, I did nothing, after nine months of being beaten down, lectured to, humiliated and hidden away, I was paralyzed. I simply sat, immobile, in the back seat, unable to cry out. I sat in silence with tears steadily running down my face. I looked over at the building that was always off limits to us girls, the building they called, The Orphanage. I keep my eyes on the building unable to look away. As the car slowly moved forward I attempted to reassure myself. I needed something to hold onto or I was going to lose it. I repeated to myself, "This isn't over, hang on. No matter what anyone says, this is not over." I reminded myself that one day my son would find me and we will be reunited. I thought, "just hold on, just wait...someday, someday..."
The car turned the corner and the building was no longer in sight, he was gone, truly gone. I felt like a lamb that had been led to slaughter. I was powerless, hopeless, unable to fight back. I loved my baby but I didn't trust myself, maybe they were right. Maybe I couldn't raise him, maybe he'd be better off with someone else. I felt trapped unable to fight back. I was heartbroken.
I have no memory of how it felt to go home after almost nine months of being away. At this point I was in a haze; all I remember is my mother binding my breasts with old sheets to dry up the milk, it was painful and a reminder of "the baby," it made me uncomfortable. Something about it was degrading. I don't remember crying a lot but I remember being deeply sad and although everything looked the same, it didn't feel the same. I feared nothing would ever feel the same again. No one ever mentioned "the baby" or asked me how I was handling my loss, neither were acknowledged. It was as if the past nine months never happened, no one said a thing, except for Bernadette. I had no secrets from Bernadette, we talked about everything, we were as close as two people could be but when she brought it up I told her I didn't want to talk about it, however my reply told her what she wanted to know. She dropped the subject but she knew from my silence that I had been seriously affected by the experience.
Termination of my motherhood:
This was the final step; the official ending, my last and most painful memory of my pregnancy. My mom and I were required to go to city hall to make the adoption final. My mother went into her usually hyper, irrational, nervous, overly worried mode about our trip to the city. My parents knew someone who worked in city hall so my mother agonized over what she would say we were doing there if someone saw us. The odds were very small we'd see this one person in a building with hundreds of employees but there was no way of calming my mother. She did this through my whole pregnancy, even before I was showing she would panic if someone saw us in a situation she thought was out of the ordinary. Once, she made me hide in a bedroom at my cousin's house for hours because people she knew from Philadelphia had unexpectedly stopped over. I couldn't walk round, turn on a light, watch TV or use the bathroom for fear they would hear me and wonder what I was doing. I felt marginalized and my feelings devalued by her constant concern over what other people would think, opposed to how I felt. However, on this day, the worst of all, the day my motherhood was going to be terminated, she still showed me no tenderness or understanding. The lack of compassion for my loss fed into my feelings of hopelessness, it made me feel I didn't deserve any compassion. My loss was never acknowledged, it became the elephant in the middle of the room.
Again, my memory is sketchy at best, like a dream you can't quite remember, just bits and pieces come into focus. I remember us roaming the halls looking for the right court room and my mother being annoyed with me from trailing behind her. Next thing I remember is my mom and I are seated at a long table with the judge in front of us on his bench, there was a court reporter and other people milling around the room. I don't remember what the judge was saying, only that whatever it was, was extremely upsetting to me. As he spoke I began to cry; in an attempt to hide myself I crouched down into the chair, my mom ignored me as she listened to the judge and answered his questions. The more he spoke the more I cried. I was unable to control myself, I became hysterical, my body shook from the force of my sobs. Then I heard the judge say, "Are you sure you want to do this?" My mother said, "Yes." He said, "I'm not talking to you; I'm talking to her." Now, everything starts moving in slow motion; through my hazy vision I notice that everyone is looking at me and I hear the judge's words echoing back in my head. It takes me a minute to comprehend what the judge has just said. I begin to slowly straighten myself in the seat. I'm confused, in shock and unprepared to answer his question. The last thing I expected was for someone to ask me what I wanted, I didn't think what I wanted mattered. I tried to think; I was told my baby needed both a father and a mother, I was told I couldn't mother my son, why would he ask me what I wanted? I'm desperate to know what to do. Was I allowed to say, "No?" Was I allowed to say I wanted to keep my baby? I look around the room, I looked at the judge and then at my mother, all eyes were upon me...again, I look at the judge and then, back, at my mother. Now she is turned in her seat looking at me, with her back to the judge, she is staring at me; she whispers, "Tell him, yes!" And I did.
As we left the court room the weight of my loss, the weight of what I just did was overwhelming. I continued to sob as we walked the halls looking for the elevators. Again, my mother was annoyed with me for lagging behind. Everyone was looking at us. This embarrassed my mom. When we found the elevators there was a crowd waiting for one to arrive, anyone who was engaged in conversation stopped to stare; I just stood there with tears streaming down my face, my head lowered and my body heaving from the force of my sobs. My mother couldn't take it any longer, she pushed me aside, into a door jam, she tells me, in a low but very stern voice, to pull myself together; everyone is still looking at us. She said, "It's over. There's nothing you can do about it now. It's over." Her words cut through me like a knife and only served to make me cry harder because I knew she was right. It was over and there was nothing I could do.
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The years that followed, my awakening, my search and the results of my search....
My Story, continued - click here.
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My Story page featured seashell:
Royal Paper Bubble shell, Aplustrum aplustre (Linné, 1758)
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Photographs, "Denise in 1969" were taken by Gene Stackhouse
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