The Only Available Option

Not shame in the sense that she was an unmarried mother when she handed her little bundle over to near strangers almost 50 years ago, but a shame that she could have gone through with it.

The pain still runs so deep it hurts.

“I didn’t have a choice,” says Lily, who asked to use a false name for this interview. “I was only 16, my father was well known in the church community and it was seen as a complete disgrace for me to be in the position I was in.” Certainly Lily has regrets about some of the decisions she made as a rebellious teenager, but none more than giving her baby girl up for adoption.

“I used to feel that I deserved to be lonely the rest of my life,” she admits. “I soon carried on and I have had a good life, but I will never forget her little doll face.” The family who adopted Lily’s newborn was an acquaintance of her family’s. She learned that when the baby was less than two years old, she passed away from an unknown illness.

Lily was later married and had three sons.

“I guess I had my chance for a little girl,” the Moncton area woman says.

Lily’s story of the struggle that follows adoption is not uncommon. And while no one would argue that at times adoption is the best decision for the future of the baby, the memories that come for moms who felt the baby grow inside her for nine months aren’t easily forgotten.

Marie Crouse is the executive director of Parent Finders New Brunswick, a non-profit organization for adult adoptee, birth parents and birth relatives in search of their roots.

Her crusade to help birth families reconnect began about 20 years ago as she worked with the organization to find the daughter she placed for adoption in the 1960s.

“I understood the emptiness that can come from adoption, for both sides,” she says. “For so many of the young moms who had babies all those years ago, they were told they should go home and forget about it.” For each of the moms—the majority of them promised anonymity—they did go home empty handed after going through labour but likely none of them ever forgot.

“For me, it was the ’60s and I was 15 and unmarried. If I didn’t sign the papers I couldn’t go home,” Marie explains.

For two weeks after giving birth in Saint John’s Evangeline Maternity Home, Marie was required to stay and care for her newborn daughter for what she believes was to “teach a lesson” to the young women. Then she was sent back home while her daughter was handed over to her new parents.

“Back then we had no choice,” Marie says. “In my case, it was the best thing. At 15 I wouldn’t have been a good mother.”

That baby girl was the only child Marie ever gave birth to. She and her husband were unable to have children but over the years they welcomed more than 100 foster kids into their home. They adopted two of the children.

But for years she looked for the daughter she gave up. She registered with the province’s Post-Adoption Disclosure Services and called for updates monthly but there was never any news. Then after hearing of Parent Finders she contacted the organization and pursued tirelessly.

“We turned over every rock and hard place but we could not find her,” she says. Marie finally learned her daughter had moved to the United States many years earlier with her adopted family.

Then in 1993, fate played its cards, Marie believes.

Her birth daughter was living in Vermont and out of work. When she went to the unemployment office there a staff person started to make enquiries about her family for which her birth daughter had no answer.

After learning she was adopted, the clerk offered to put her in touch with a Parent Finders group in the United States which eventually led to a connection with Marie back in New Brunswick.

“I would never try to make up for the 34 years we were apart,” Marie says. “I understand that I gave her life but I’m not her mom.

“But for me, I describe my heart as a pie. Until I found that missing piece, my heart wouldn’t have been complete.”

The birth mother and daughter (Carolynee Getchell) stay connected by phone and email between their long distance homes.

“I think the typical relationship people can expect when they find their birth relative is friendship. The typical isn’t seeing each other every week or calling each other every week, but staying connected. At first there are a lot of conversations or meetings because there are so many questions to be answered, but once that’s done, you can relax.

“For me, now I know she is alright. When her birthday rolls around I don’t have to wonder if she’s alive, or if she’s married, or if she’s happy.” Little ironies often creep up between adoptees and their birth families when they meet. Both Marie and her birth daughter work as executive assistants, for example.

With more than 200 family connections to Marie’s credit, she says most of her searches have happy endings.

“I have only met a handful of birth mothers who said they don’t want anything to do with it,” Marie says. “I would say close to 90 per cent of reconnections work out well. Most people want nothing more than to say they looked their birth parent or the child they gave birth to in the eye.”

The first step birth relatives should take in their search is to contact the government office of Post Adoption Disclosure Services to request non- identifying information.

Sometimes the wait is long, usually in the three to nine month period, but when that document is received, for birth parents or birth siblings, this non- identifying information usually reveals information on the adoptive parents such as their age and educational level, the length of their marriage, whether they had other children, their motivation to adopt, their religion and interests as well as other information considered non-identifying.

That information is taken at the time of the adoption and therefore is not current.