My Daughter's Mom

A tribute to an Adoptive Mom by Carol Bird, a grateful birthmother

The first time I saw my daughter's mom was on a cold wintery day in mid- February, 1954. I wasn't certain the woman wearing the darkly veiled hat and ankle-length fur coat was my daughter's new mom, but the impression she made on me, as she stood rather nervously next to a taxi in front of the hospital, was to remain with me forever.

It was there, in front of the hospital near the shores of Lake Michigan, that I watched in panic as the nurse carrying my baby continued down the walkway toward the taxi to place the sweet little bundle I had just wrapped in pastel green blankets into the arms of a stranger. With a sinking feeling shuddering throughout my body I instinctively moved to follow, but my mother and the lawyer held my arm as the taxi sped off. Even now, after almost 49 years, I can still bring back my mind's eye picture of that strangely dressed woman standing by the taxi waiting for my baby.

They told me adoption was the best choice. I was unmarried and though 19, was not prepared to take on the responsibilities of an unmarried mother. They told me my baby would have two loving parents, a good home and all of the advantages I was too young and inexperienced to provide at that time. They also told me that this was an opportunity for me to go on with my life ... finish school, find a loving husband and have other children. They didn't tell me about the haunting dreams, the unanswered questions and the terrible ache that remained with me for the rest of my life. They didn't tell me that you can never replace that lost child. They didn't tell me I would remain unmarried for the rest of my life, because I was afraid to share my shame..

I didn't discover for certain that the lady by the taxi was my daughter's new mom until 32 years later, when, on December 30, 1986, I arrived in Washington, D.C. to meet, face-to-face, that dear baby; now a grown up woman and first time mother herself. We no sooner arrived at my daughter's house when the phone rang and her mom, Sylvia, welcomed me into her family and confirmed that my suspicions were correct -- that was her waiting by the taxi. The hat and fur coat she wore were borrowed to comply with the lawyer's request that she "disguise" herself.

Today, almost 16 years in reunion, we are mourning the death of that dear woman who I grew to love as the years passed. She died in early July 2002, just weeks before her 86th birthday. Her death was almost as painful for me as the loss of my own mother two years ago. I lost a special friend when my daughter lost her mom.

Sylvia was an interesting woman, a former registered nurse who served in the Nursing Corps during WW 2 and was now married to a small-town pediatrician. She was well educated and mature. They already had a daughter who was three years old at the time, but Sylvia was unable to have more. They dearly wanted a family; adoption was the only recourse.

The "closed" adoption era of yesterday was one of the cruellest programs ever perpetrated upon unwed mothers across the Western world. That era left in its wake millions of damaged psyches and permanently destroyed the lives of countless thousands of birthmothers and adoptees. It has only been in recent years that the problem was brought out from under the cloak of secrecy. In the closed adoption neither the birthmother nor the adoptive parents knew one another and a birthmother was cautioned to keep secret the fact that she had given birth. She was consigned to live with that secret for the rest of her life. Today schools of psychology are training therapists to recognize the issues adoptees and birthparents are struggling with, and, finally, specialized therapies are being developed. Long overdue but welcome. The death of a child at least gives some sort of closure--this finality was never realized with closed adoptions unless a reunion of some sort could be arranged. Even then, though, the recovery and healing period seems endless and many just give up.

I was one of the lucky birthmothers of the closed adoption era, though you couldn't have convinced me of that during the years before my 1986 reunion. Though we didn't know one another, my daughter's parents seem to truly have cared about me. Susan was raised with full knowledge of her adoption, and she was raised to love and respect me, the mother who gave her birth. They shared what little information the had about me--my age and my interests and, because Sylvia saw me that day in 1954, she was able to describe what I looked like.

When our first grandchild was born Sylvia encouraged Susan to look for me. In fact, had she not phoned Susan from Florida to urge her to tune into a morning talk show on Adoption Reunions, Susan might have had to struggle through the usual long and stressful search, rather than the short, successful one that within days led to the December 16, 1986 phone call that launched our reunion. I sometimes think Sylvia was as excited about meeting me as was Susan. She often told me how she longed to share Susan's life with me through the years. Instead they filled albums of snapshots and took home movies from the first day they brought Susan into their home. I was to spend New Year's Eve 1986 holding my five-month old first grandchild while watching her mother, my daughter, grow up on film.

I can't really describe the bittersweet ache I felt that New Year's Eve as I watched the film showing Sylvia unwrapping the pastel green blankets to reveal the same sweet face I kissed for the first and last time that February day almost 33 years before. I was amazed and driven to tears when Susan brought out a box containing the lovely crocheted baby shawl I wrapped around her blanket at the hospital that day. Sylvia saved it through all those years to present to Susan upon the birth of our first grandchild in August 1986.

My daughter and son-in-law made up a video of home movie highlights of her growing up years to present to me the following year. There are scenes of bathing, being hugged by her big sister, laughing at her image in the mirror, taking wobbly first steps around her playpen, welcoming her new brother who was adopted just a month before her first birthday, vacations at the lake, playing in the yard, birthday parties, first high heels, dating, all the way up to her marriage and the birth of my granddaughters. Watching that now worn out video is one of my favorite pastimes. Between visits Susan has kept me well supplied with videos and snapshots of my granddaughters' growing up, too.

Sylvia left the hospital that day in 1954 taking my four-day old baby girl; she returned to me a fully grown, beautiful, caring, intelligent and talented young woman who not only had a successful career but who became a loving and understanding wife and mother. Those wonderful parents willingly shared our daughter and grandchildren with me. They brought love back into my life.

Thank you and God keep you dear Sylvia; I will always cherish my memories of you.

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