Loss, Adoption, & Love... My Human And Spiritual Journey

Loss, Adoption, & Love

My human & spiritual journey …

Published By Ann James at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Ann James

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Praise for this book:

"I thoroughly enjoyed reading Ann’s book, and laughed and cried with her. Congratulations for giving birth to a book about such an amazing journey which is, and will be, an inspiration and education for many."

Terry and Barbara Tebo … Authors of Free To Be Me

"Ann’s book is a vital part of the adoption story. The adoptive parents are often forgotten in the current adoption reunion literature, and she gives them their voice. I found this book very difficult to put down, and as the reader, felt I was able to walk alongside her in her journey."

Janet Hengan … Manager of Post Adoption Resource Centre

"This is a book that offers a map, a compass, a lived example, for working through pain, searching for meaning, and becoming free to be one’s true, whole, and best self. The honesty of her writing is disarming, joyful, and inspiring."

Sonali Abeynaike … Manager of CatholicCare Adoption Services

"There is much to learn from, and appreciate, in Ann’s telling of her journey."

Sarah Armstrong (Adoptee) … Long term professional worker in the field of adoption

"I cannot recall any other book about adoption that is like this one."

Gary Coles (Birth Father) … Author of The Invisible Men of Adoption

I LOVINGLY DEDICATE THIS BOOK

to all my family.

* * *

I SEND MY GOOD WISHES

to all who are personally,

and indirectly,

inter-connected with the complex journey of adoption.

* * *

What a marathon

my experience with adoption has turned out to be.

Beginning from a dark valley

of primal emotional pain,

this is the story of my joys and struggles …

my growing empathy and respect

for all adoptees,

for all biological and adoptive parents …

my changing attitudes, expanding insights,

and what I have learnt along the way …

during this journey

of my human and spiritual discovery.

* * *

Table of Contents

PART 1

Chapter 1 The Beginning

Chapter 2 Overnight Pregnancy

Chapter 3 Family

Chapter 4 The Letter & The Veto

PART 2

Chapter 5 First Meeting

Chapter 6 Roller Coaster

Chapter 7 Wedding Day

Chapter 8 To See Your Drama

Chapter 9 Mothers

Chapter 10 Facing Our Fears

Chapter 11 Adoptees

Chapter 12 Fathers

PART 3

Chapter 13 Self Healing

Chapter 14 Spirituality & Adoption

Chapter 15 The Adoption Circle

Chapter 16 An ‘Underground River’

Chapter 17 Moving Home

Chapter 18 Four Seasons

PART 1

‘Your own problems

are the most important ones

for you to resolve

for if you better your own life

you will have helped to resolve

the enigma of existence for others.’

Yogananda

Chapter 1

THE BEGINNING

I still clearly remember that auspicious day when I made the first major decision of my adult life’s journey.

I was mowing the grass and had reached the top section of our terraced back garden in the Sydney suburb of Greenwich. I can vividly picture the exact spot where I was standing. Out of the blue, the thought seemingly descended down from the sky into my mind, I’ll become a teacher. I had finished high school, planned to be a journalist, and was working for The Australian Women’s Weekly. The most important thing I wanted to do with my future life was to marry and have children, and I decided at that moment that going to teachers’ college would help me be a better mother.

In that second, in my mind, my whole self, it was fait accompli. It seemed so right, as if I had spent the previous year pondering the pros and cons.

So I became an infants' teacher. Then a few years later the blow came – my doctor told me that I might never be able to give birth to my own children.

I had just had an appendix operation with major complications when this unwelcome news assailed me. Of course, I didn't believe it. It was unthinkable, not at all part of my plans, and I tried to ignore it. And like the wolf trying to blow down the third little pig's house, for many years to come after I married at twenty-four, I hoped, and I tried to become pregnant.

It had been so hard to tell my boyfriend Peter, now my husband, that I might never be able to give birth to my own children. We had parked the car at Milsons Point near the Sydney Harbour Bridge late one night after an evening out. It was so quiet and peaceful we could hear the water lapping next to the sandstone wall as boats passed. I felt responsible, even guilty, and thought it was of the utmost importance to let Peter know what might happen if he were to plan a long-term relationship with me.

My news didn’t seem to faze him and we continued going out together. Less than a year after we married in 1963, the company Peter worked for sent him to the United States for a special computer training course, and we decided to travel there via Europe. I fantasized that my pregnancy would begin in Naples, our first port of call. Or perhaps it would happen in Switzerland. Paris was the highlight of our trip and against all laws of logic I was serenely convinced that my baby had begun his or her life.

But that didn’t happen. A few years later we decided to take twelve months leave of absence from our jobs and again go overseas, working part-time in London and travelling through Europe. I hoped that this enjoyable and carefree experience would help me become pregnant. But again it was not to be.

After our return to Australia, the next few years were filled with medical tests aimed at having my own baby. I can remember feeling completely humiliated when the specialist told me to look at his face and listen to what he wanted me to do. He spoke slowly and in words of one syllable, as if to a child. He explained what clothes to take off, where to lie, what position to assume. As soon as he left the room, I was so nervous and felt so humiliated that I had trouble remembering a bloody word he'd said. As a 'good little girl', however, I tried to do as I was told. After other painful tests, I rushed to get home, sheltering behind sunglasses to hide the expression in my eyes. Mustn’t cry in public, I told myself, sobbing and trembling once the front door was closed.

One last try was a major operation with only 10 per cent chance of success according to the specialist. I didn't hesitate. I entered St. Anne's ward in the Mater Hospital, my heart longing for a miracle.

Six weeks later I went back to Macquarie St. for a post operation check-up and I was told the operation was a complete failure, the doctor could do nothing else for me, and I would definitely not be able to give birth to a child. He told me straight. At least that was of some help. I could not detect a trace of compassion in his words, in the tone of his voice, the expression on his face, in his eyes.

But I didn't seem to have any reaction to his news, didn't seem to feel anything in particular. As I went out the door I was completely disoriented – where the hell was the lift? Typical reactions when in shock.

It wasn’t until many years later that I began to consciously acknowledge to myself the enormity of that shock, the grief, the loss, that I had buried deeply within myself in those few moments.

The doctor happened to come out of his office then and led the way to the lift, with the 'good little girl' feeling like a fool dutifully following. We were in the lift together, no one else, and I heard myself blurt out to him, We'll adopt children. And that was that.

How dreadfully abrupt that must have sounded – maybe to the listener, even callous? And yet that final decision had remained tucked away in the back of my mind all of those years of unsuccessfully trying to become pregnant because I had heard the plea so many times, during the priests’ sermons in the Catholic church that I attended every Sunday, for women to open up their hearts and help little babies in need of being adopted.

When the lift came to a stop on the ground floor, the specialist and I went in different directions. I found myself automatically going into David Jones department store that was nearby and found a public phone. I didn't have the courage to tell my mother face to face. I felt so responsible – my two brothers had died and I was the ‘last of the Mohicans’ – my mother's line had come to an end because of me. I couldn’t bring myself to tell my husband yet, and left that ordeal until later that day.

I then rang the infants' school at Lane Cove where I was teaching to tell the Headmistress the result, and to say I couldn't come to school that day. I had been over-conscientious and had planned to go to work in the afternoon.

It was so strange, so poignant, to look at the faces of the sweet little six year olds in my class the next day, and know I would never experience giving birth to one of my own.

As I write this, I remember the bitterness I felt towards that doctor. How do I know that he was uncaring? It's my judgment, my perception, that he was as cold as ice. The poor man may have felt as lousy as hell for failing to help me. I apologize, Doctor. I know you were doing the very best you could at that particular time of your life, just as I was. I forgive you, and I forgive myself for my hatred of you at that time.

So the appendix operation, followed by all those medical procedures, and then the operation which was my last hope of being able to become pregnant, resulted in perhaps my version of a caesarean scar. But for such different reasons and results!

Looking back to my originally wanting to be a journalist, a teacher, and a mother, I now know that further down the track completely different paths eventually led to the manifestation of those three life goals.

My children through the process of adoption. My future teaching eventually with adults and their human and spiritual personal growth. And my writing this book.

I had no idea back then what a huge journey, including so many very personal and completely unexpected attitudinal changes, awaited me.

* * *

Chapter 2

OVERNIGHT PREGNANCY

Quite a few people said to me what a wonderful thing to do, to take a stranger's child into my home and raise him/her as my own. At no time did this occur to me, then or now. When Peter and I finally knew there was absolutely no chance that we could have our own biological children, we both accepted our adopting children instead. There had been much publicity in those days about so many babies needing to be adopted. I imagined a little baby in hospital, separated for whatever reason from their birth mother, a little baby who needed a mother. I wanted to have children, and couldn't have my own, so in my mind one plus one equalled two. My babies were out there somewhere waiting for me to be their mother. I don't mean this is in any possessive sense, rather ‘my’ babies in a maternal sense.

So in June 1970, almost seven years after we were married, Peter and I applied for adoption through the Catholic adoption agency. I was thirty-one and Peter was thirty-five. The only thing I can remember about this process was an interview at their quarters in the city, and feeling so much respect and goodwill emanating from the social workers towards Peter and me, the prospective adoptive parents.

How easy this part of my story was, an oasis, refreshing and peaceful, accepting the past, enjoying the present, and looking forward to the future. Driving to Armidale to visit Peter's mother, we agreed that we would like two children, a boy first, then a girl, both as young as possible.

Without one hiccup or anything even remotely resembling dissention, I suggested the names that I would love to give our future baby boy and girl, and Peter agreed. So we decided on their names. Steven because I was born on St. Stephen's Day – the spelling made easier for the future kindergarten child by the thoughtful infants' teacher. I liked the name, thought it sounded masculine and strong, and it could be softened affectionately to Steve and Stevie. (On my sixteenth birthday I had been given my first little transistor radio, and named it Stevie. It was red, tiny, light, and was lovingly taken to Balmoral Beach regularly. Lisa, my daughter-in-law, thinks it's my astrological lunar influence that caused me to be so bizarre as to give my son the same name as my radio.)

When I was in fourth grade at Bethlehem Ladies' College, Ashfield, one of my close friends was named Julie-Ann and I've always loved the sound of it, the memory of our playing together, and the bus rides home together. I wonder where she is, how she is now. So I chose that name for our daughter. And she is now my best adult female friend.

Pete liked the names, so that was all decided in a matter of minutes, and our prospective children became real live human beings in my mind, in my heart. After the loss of not being able to give birth to my biological children, my love for Steven and Julie began then. It was just a matter of time before they manifested.

And wow! That sure was an unforgettable time in our lives. Peter and I had moved from our home unit at Greenwich, where we had been happy for six years, to a house in Wahroonga, in preparation for the arrival of our babies. We had specified three bedrooms, and a flat playing area in the garden, in preparation for the arrival of our baby son and daughter. I resigned from teaching at Lane Cove a short time after we had moved, so I would be both organized and rested, in preparation for our babies.

We decided to go on a two week holiday while we still had the chance, and just to make sure it was OK to leave Sydney, I rang to check with the adoption agency. Mrs James there is no chance you will have your baby before Christmas. Not so …

On the last day of our holiday in December 1970, less than six months since we had put in our adoption application, we had a lovely time at the vineyards – you probably know how it can be – a little sip o' this, a little taste o' that, and before you can say Christopher Columbus the world is beginning to look decidedly rosy. So after dinner, back to the motel to do a little genteel collapsing, Pete even more so than me.

It was about 9 p.m. and I decided to ring my mother, who had been staying in our home while we were away, to tell her what time we were coming home the next day, and trotted (no, more like drifted) up to the manager's office to use their phone. Mum sounded so excited, almost incoherent Ann, your baby's here, your baby's here! The Adoption Agency rang and a baby boy is waiting for you in Manly hospital!

I ran back to Peter and shouted the news, tears streaming down my face, and telling him we have to go back to Sydney straight away so we can meet our baby first thing in the morning. I saw the green tinge to his face and raced back to the lady in the office to ask her for directions – I thought I would have to drive. When I told her the story she started to bawl too, gave me a hug, and refused to take any payment for the room. What a lovely gesture, how good people are, how loving and warm, how close we really are to each other.

Pete drove. I got carsick. In the few hours that were left of the night once we finally got to bed, of course there was hardly any sleep for me. Up in the morning at the crack of dawn, I started ringing the adoption agency at 8 a.m. in case someone got into work early, and when finally able to talk to the social worker, insisted on coming in immediately after a stop at a chemist to get a draught for nausea – when I mix even a little bit of alcohol with a lot of emotion, I'm done for! As I write this it occurs to me how ironic that I was suffering my version of a pregnant woman’s morning sickness.

The social worker read out a few details about the baby's background – I tried valiantly to listen but all I could think of was that little morsel was with a bunch of nurses, rather than with me, his mother. So it was yes, yes, yes, with no hesitation to all information, all questions, all agreements, all documents, all signatures.

In fact, an overnight pregnancy. How's that for a miracle! Giving birth this fast sure does have lots of advantages and disadvantages though, I suppose just the same as a nine month pregnancy – the ups and downs are for different reasons.

But could we tear over to the hospital then? Nope. Had to do a detour to a couple of shops to buy nappies, bottles and teats, etc., because of the no chance before Christmas. At least I had the bedroom ready with a most beautiful crib, gorgeous mosquito netting, little sheets and pillows, a change table, some tiny clothes, all in white, just in case he was