Lost and Found – My Daughter

I was 16 when I found out I was pregnant, so naive I never realised until I was 6 months gone. I was shocked, very shocked. More shocked were my parents, how I ever mananged to tell them I don't know, they were very religeous and victorian in their ways. My boyfriend was the only one who stood by me.

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When I was in labour I was sent to a hospital in another town where I was left at the doorstep with a note to say I was to have no anesthetic in the hope of teaching me a lesson. I had never been so frightened in my life. My boyfriend was not allowed anywhere near the hospital. I was told by very unfriendly staff that once the baby was born, it would be taken away so that I would not get a chance to bond with it. I cannot tell anyone, unless they have experience of this, how absolutely awful this was.

I had a perfectly healthy baby girl and I got a quick glimpse of her before they took her away. I was devasted. The vicar then arrived, apparently sent by my mother to rid me of my sins!

As soon as I left the hospital and met with my boyfriend, we decided to do everything possible to get our baby back. We tried Social Services in several different towns in the hope of having her fostered for a year until we sorted ourselves out but they all said 'No'. I asked my parents but that was a definate 'No'. My boyfriends parents wanted to keep her, we agreed, but again my parents stepped in and said 'No'. Hard to beleive these days but I had no rights, no say, as I was under 18. After 5 weeks we managed to find a private foster mother and I held my little girl for the first time, she was gorgeous. I spent every moment I could with her but after 4 months the foster mother asked me if I could have her at home weekends so that she would get more used to me, I agreed - my parents said 'No'. The foster mother and my moral welfare officer said there was no choice but to have our baby adopted. We tried to get her out of the country but of course we did not have a passport for her and we were brought straight back again. Eventually when she was 8 months old, we lost her completely. I was told that if I did not sign the adoption papers, my boyfriend would be taken to court for underage sex and I would be put in a home for un-contrable children. She was taken from my arms at the court, my boyfriend was in a state as were his family, not to mention me.

Each year on her birthday we lit a candle.

Her father and I eventully married but then divorced but we remain friends to this day even though we are other ends of the globe. One reason we remained friends was in the hope of one day finding our daughter.

Each year on her Birthday we wrote to all the authorities involved and more to ask if any policy had changed with regard to searching for adopted people. I started a book and put each piece of paper relating to the adoption in it, each search, each researcher that helped me or tried. Over the years the book just got bigger and bigger. Last year however, I had a call from Norcap (Adoption Organisiation I registed with) saying that as I had been searching for 25 years, they were prepared to help me which they did. In the meantime, my daughter was also searching and very spookily she wrote to me on the same day that a letter was being to her, they crossed in the post. When I read the letter, well I can't explain it, I never thought it would happen to me, I read lots of reunion stories but thought it would never happen but I guess my perserverance and obsession almost, with the search, paid off.

In September last year I met my daughter for the first time, we are like two peas in the same pod, think alike, speak alike, same humour everything except our looks, she looks just like her father who is also over the moon at our reunion. He emails her but has yet to meet her.

Everything is now beautiful, my limb is back! It is not a smooth road, pretty rocky at times but the pain of adoption is with us for the rest of our lives. Sometimes I want to see her more, be more in her life than she wants but it cannot be, she has her own family and so I am happy with her seeing me when and if she wants. Very happy.

To all those searching - keep going. Adoption in my eyes is very cruel to some of us. When someone dies you grieve and come to terms with it - eventually, but when a child is taken for adoption against our will and we are now allowed to know whether the child lives or not, you can grieve but you never come to terms with it.

Best bit of all?? She calls me MUMMY

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Credits: Rosie