The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade

by Ann Fessler

  Those of us who were nearing the time of giving birth would go down on a weekly basis to see the doctor, whoever was there. We would see a different one every time we went. I don’t know if they were interns from a local hospital or what the situation was. We were never given any information on what it was like to be pregnant, what to expect from month to month. We were given no instruction or classes regarding childbirth or labor and delivery. The only thing I remember hearing from some of the girls were the signs of labor coming, like your water breaking.

  And of course therapy—which was really nonexistent—was just meeting with a caseworker once a week, if that. The whole time we would spend with them they would be talking about, “Well, are you going to arts-and-crafts class? What did you do there? Did you make any ceramics? Have you taken any classes on knitting? Are you feeling okay?”

  Then they would say things about the baby. It’s always “the baby,” never “your baby.” And they were not talking about adoption except to say, “This experience will end. You will forget that you were here. You will forget that you went through this. It will all be in the past. Given time, it will fade. You will get over it. You know what you did was wrong? You know that you are really not worthy of keeping your own child? You can’t provide a home for that child. You can’t provide anything that child needs. That child needs a mother and a father, and the things that they can give that child.”

  I remember feeling almost not deserving of having or keeping my child, but also feeling I don’t have the right to be a mom. I don’t have the right to be a mother. So, we really heard that on almost a daily basis and the other girls were believing them and reinforcing to each other: “You know, they said you will forget about this and it will be okay. We aren’t going to remember and, after all, we are not supposed to think of ourselves, we are supposed to think of the baby. You’re supposed to think of what’s best for the baby.”

  When I went into labor, I was lying on that vinyl couch in the living room, watching Bewitched on TV. It was eight o’clock in the evening and my water broke. I was terrified and I got hysterical. I went to the phone. I called home and talked to my mom. I was crying because I was so terrified. And she said, “I can’t talk right now, stop being a baby,” and she hung up the phone.

  I was still crying, and another girl went and got the housemother. She put me in a cab and got in and we went to the hospital. When we got there she said, “All right, go in and give them your first name and last initial and tell them you are from the home.” I went in by myself. The nurse put me in a wheelchair and took me upstairs in an elevator and got me undressed. She gave me an enema, which I never had before. I didn’t know why. She prepped me, which included being shaved. I had no idea why that was being done, either. The nurse came over and gave me some kind of shot, then next thing I remember I was out cold. I don’t remember anything until after my daughter was born at two-thirty in the morning.

  I said, “Where is my baby?” And she pulled this bassinet into the room. That’s when I learned I had a girl and that she had been born eight pounds one ounce. I didn’t get to hold her until they released me. They put me in a wheelchair and took me out to the front door. There was a cab waiting for me. I got into the cab and it had a housemother in it and they handed me my baby. We drove back to the maternity home, but this time when they pulled in they went to the building off to the side of the dormitory, which was the hospital building. It was totally off-limits to the girls who had not had their babies. So, once a girl disappeared in the middle of the night, we never saw her again. They were kept strictly in that hospital building.

  It was like a ward where they would have, I think, six or eight beds with white iron headboards. I was on the far wall. Next to the bed was a white porcelain table with a drawer and at the end of each bed was a chair with a vinyl seat. It was very institutional. At a certain time, they would have us pull our chairs out into a circle and then they would bring our babies out for us to feed. Then they would take the baby back into the nursery. I stayed there with my baby for ten days, not knowing what day I was leaving or when she was leaving.

  On the tenth day, my mom and aunt came in the morning. My aunt brought a baptism gown and the nurse brought my daughter in and I dressed her in the gown. My mom said we were going to take her down the street and have her baptized. There was a little chapel, a Catholic chapel called Our Lady of Victory. We went back to the maternity home and my mom and my aunt went somewhere.

  About an hour later a woman came back and said, “Come with me.” They took me down the hall to this room that was empty except for a rocking chair. Then she came back with my baby and handed her to me and said, “You have an hour to say goodbye.” I put her on my lap and kind of unwrapped her blanket to look at her, and kissed her feet and put her up on my shoulder. I can feel her there. I can still feel her there.

  I told her how much I loved her and all about her dad and how much he loved me. I told her that he was a good guy. I told her I hoped she would understand and forgive because I didn’t have any choice. I had to do what they told me to do. I had nowhere to go. I had no one to help me. I just begged her to forgive me. And it just seemed like minutes later that woman came back.

  I remember thinking, “How often does she do this? How can she do this?” She said, “I have to take her now.” I just sat in there for a long time, rocking and rocking and rocking and rocking. I don’t even know how long I was in there. Then I walked back and packed up my suitcase. The nurse said, “Your mother will be here soon. Go out the front door.” And there was my mom. So I walked down the stairs, got in the car, and drove home.

  It was just really weird being home, because I wasn’t even the same person anymore. I was so changed by that. I was expected to go back and be this teenager and live under their rules. I was a mom, but I wasn’t allowed to be the mom. All I did was just lie in bed because I think I was just in shock. I just knew something is really wrong here. I was just so empty.

  They would call, and they would call to say, “Come in and sign the papers.” “I can’t do that, I can’t do that now. Yes, okay, soon.” At some point, I did go in and sign those papers because I knew that I had no choice. There was no way I was going to be able to keep her. They said, “Well, you would have to pay all the expenses if you keep your daughter.” I didn’t have any money. I was still living at home.

  The social worker came over to me with these papers and put them down on the table. I remember there was just a pen and the papers on the table and she flipped it back to the last page and said, “Sign here and date it,” and I did. I guess I was just too naïve even to know that I should read it and try to understand what it said. I am just astounded that I got no explanation. Nothing happened in front of a judge, no lawyer was there at all, it was just the two of us. So I signed. I remember walking out the door and that door just slamming at my back like I’d just been thrown away.

  So I went home and tried to get on with my life, like they said I would. I was going to forget. I got married two years later and had my second daughter. I had married an abusive man. We moved often and I really just fought to survive throughout that eleven-year marriage. I remember always pulling out the pictures that I had when I was alone and just crying over the pictures of the baby, thinking, “Where are you? Who are you? Are you okay?” And being so worried about was she alive or dead? Is she hurting?

  Then I had another child, three years after having my second, and still struggling with the abuse of my marriage, until we moved to New Mexico and I left him. I understand that it’s pretty common for mothers who have lost a child to adoption to marry an abusive man because we feel pretty worthless. I got divorced and moved back to the northern Virginia area where most of my extended family lived at the time. I got remarried in ’84 and told my husband, or my soon-to-be husband, about my experience and he was very accepting.

  It’s really tragic. We were not told any of our rights. We were not told we had the right to keep our own b
aby. We were not helped to keep our baby. There was a conflict of interest in the agencies’ not providing us with legal counsel. The social workers should have been required to tell us what was available to us, so we could make an informed decision. We were never told anything except adoption—it was the only option offered to us. We weren’t told that we could get child support from the fathers. We weren’t told that we could apply for welfare or Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which was available then. There was a lack of informed consent.

  All of our rights were abused. Ignored and abused. The rights that people take for granted today, we were denied. We didn’t know because we were young, and we trusted our parents, and we trusted authority. We trusted our elders and we were taught to respect them. They would tell us what was best. So we figured if that’s what was best, then that was what we needed to do. They’ve injured and damaged millions of people.

  My parents didn’t come to my aid. I felt very abandoned by them, physically and emotionally. I wanted them to say to me, “If you want to keep your baby, you can come home with your baby.” They never said that. They never said, “You can keep your baby and you and her father can live with us until you can get on your feet.” His parents never said that. No offers were made to help me keep my child!

  I just didn’t know how I could do it all by myself with no offers of help. If her father had said, “I will send you money. Keep her. Take her home.…” I never thought, “I am just going to keep my baby and to hell with them all!” I didn’t feel that power and I think that’s because I was so ashamed and so full of guilt and not knowing what else I could do. I just knew that my parents paid a lot of money for me to be there. And I think that supported my thinking at the time, which was “How can I go against them after what they’ve suffered because I made a decision, a judgment, that I should not have made, which was having sex when I was not married. And how can I put them through more agony and more expense and more work?”

  You’re just so beaten down by being in that place and being told, “You can’t, you can’t, you can’t.” And “You aren’t a mother, you don’t deserve to be a mother, and you can never be a mother and you can’t provide anything.” It was just overwhelming. The odds were all overwhelming because nobody was offering a hand. No one.

  The whole point was to just keep us scared all the time and feeling guilt all the time. And compliant, you know? “You do this and you can go home.” It makes me very, very angry today to think about that manipulation. You know? It was evil. To me, it was evil. To think that these people could play God like that with people’s lives. And determine who can have a child and who can’t.

  Nobody ever said, “What do you want, Karen? What do you want? Do you want to keep your baby?” Even though our bodies were telling us that baby was ours, they were counteracting all of those normal, natural feelings with “No, no, no. Don’t even think of that because it’s not your child. It’s these people’s child over here. It’s been promised to them.” They were always real to us. This baby was going go to them and they deserved it. “They can’t have children. You should be happy you’re giving your child to someone so wonderful who has so much to offer that child. You should be grateful for that. You should be grateful we’re solving your problem. You made this mistake. You caused this problem for everyone.” Not just for my parents but for everyone. “You’ve put an enormous amount of people out because of your illegal sex. And now you must do the right thing and give the baby to these people over here who are married. And let it have a father and a mother that can give it everything you can’t give it.”

  There was such emotional and mental damage done by all of that. And it has intensified with every passing year, you know. It just got worse and worse and worse. I am very overprotective of my children because I am afraid that they, too, will disappear, you know? And like when they were born, expecting somebody to come in and take them from me, you know? Not being able to have them away from my sight because somebody could just take them. Always trying to make everything right for them, because I was not a worthy, decent person. I was defective and I was substandard and I have spent thirty-six years of my life trying to be the perfect mother, the perfect person, the perfect woman, the perfect employee, and the perfect wife.

  I have nightmares and flashbacks that catch me totally off-guard. I mean, even a song would just freeze me in my tracks. You’re haunted by it. I don’t know how you ever get over that feeling. The only way to heal from this is to be accepted by your child and for the public to know the truth of what really happened. And understand it’s the truth. Instead of always pushing adoption as this loving, wonderful, rescuing thing. Yes, that may be the case for people who adopt. It is not the case for us. You never are whole. Never. It’s a hugely damaging thing. It’s an enormously injuring, painful, fracturing amputation of families. And the closest thing to healing you can find is your child being willing to know you and love you. And being accepted in their life, where you should have been all along and were denied.

  We were not criminals. We’re mothers. The difference was I was not an authenticated mother. I was an illegal mother. I was a denied mother. And I had to come home and live my life after being robbed of my child. It’s as if I was an unwilling accomplice to the kidnapping of my own child. So you have to live with the trauma of losing your child and then you have to live with the trauma of knowing you didn’t stop it. How do you do that?

  PAM

  The father of my son was my first love. I met him in junior high and I figured out I was pregnant early on in the ninth grade. Carnation Instant Breakfast was popular back then and that’s what I used to have every morning before I would go off to school. Well, this one particular morning I had had vanilla. My mom and dad had just gotten brand-new carpeting and all of a sudden I got sick all over my mother’s new carpet. I didn’t feel like I had the flu; I just erupted. My mother asked, “Do you feel sick?” “No.” The next morning, like clockwork, it happens again, so my mother’s kind of looking at me sideways.

  From then on, I would take the Carnation Instant Breakfast and I would dump it in the toilet. My mom got a little wise to me. She’d say, “Do you have something you want to tell me?” I would play innocent and say, “I don’t know what you are talking about.” She asked, “Are you pregnant?” In all honesty, my mom was a very sweet person. She really wanted to know, not because she wanted to clobber me but because she wanted to help me. But I thought, “No. If I tell her, I won’t get to see him anymore and my life will be destroyed.”

  I’m not exactly sure how I thought I was going to pull all of this off, but I intended to. My boyfriend had given me this big brown faux fur coat for Christmas, this kind of big, bulky thing. They were very popular then. The one he gave me was too big, but he gave it to me. As it turns out, this coat would become extremely important for several reasons—it was the coat we cuddled in, and it became my uniform once I realized I was pregnant.

  Being fourteen, we decided that we were going to get married. We got jobs and started saving our money. He worked two paper routes. He had a Sting-Ray bicycle that he would ride me on the back of and we would throw newspapers and make collections. I took up jobs doing all kinds of little things. We thought we were set. We bought a little tiny color TV, we bought booties, we bought outfits, we were looking into health insurance. We were just going to show everybody how grown-up we were because we intended to raise our child.

  We thought we were pulling it off and nobody knew. PE class was becoming problematic, though, because you dressed and showered with everybody. I got pretty good at lolly-gagging so I could get dressed without people really noticing, but eventually rumors started going around the school. It’s getting warmer and I’m still wearing this brown coat and my clothes are getting a little tight.

  So, one day I’m getting dressed and the gym teacher came up. There was a nickname for her but I won’t say what it was. Anyway, she confronted me: “Hey, you pregnant?” There were a couple
of other girls in the locker room, so I didn’t turn around. I thought if I respond to it, it’s like I’m admitting guilt. So I pretended I didn’t know who she was talking to, even though I was the only one in that aisle. So she reaches out, grabs my shoulder, spins me around, and says, “I’m talking to you.” I said, “I don’t know what you are talking about. Don’t put your hands on me.” She didn’t like that comment, so she pushed me and I lunged forward and pushed her back and said, “Don’t you touch me,” and she came up swinging. She couldn’t get me down. I was this quiet little blond-haired, blue-eyed simpleton who never opened her mouth, and all of a sudden she’s got a problem, because I was fighting for my life.

  So another two weeks go by, and I start to develop a little itchy rash and I’m really worried. The German measles were going around and I thought, “Oh my God, I’ve got German measles.” So I go to the counselor and asked if she has a minute. I said, “I have this friend who thinks that she is pregnant and could have been exposed to German measles. How far along does that person…?” I maybe got a few more sentences out, but not many more, and she said, “We are going to the nurse’s office.” I’m thinking, “You idiot, why did you say anything?” But I was really frightened for the baby. She tells the doctor that she thinks I am pregnant and I laugh and say, “I don’t know what she’s talking about. I don’t know what’s the matter with her.” He opens my coat and with every muscle in my body I am trying to pull that baby in. Then he put his hand against my stomach and my son decided to do a jig. The doctor got an almost gray, serious look on his face and said, “You’re pregnant, and you’re quite a ways along.” I was still saying, “No, I’m not. I don’t know what you are talking about. I haven’t done anything. This has got to be Immaculate Conception.”