Christine's Story
Chris - Christmas 1999
Not once, did my mother ask me what I wanted… She asked the local Policeman to talk my boyfriend into marriage, and then she threatened him with rape… I told her that if it came to that, I would swear under oath I'd never been out with him…
From that day on, mum never called me anything but a slut, and mole, and she always referred to my baby as "the bastard" or "the little bastard"… She was physically violent to me, saying that if I had a miscarriage well and good, it could be explained away as peritonitis… Mum frequently repeated and I quote: " Bring the bastard home and I'll make sure the cat lies on it, and when they cut the little bastard open, all they'll find will be cat hairs…"
I worked at the local shop till a week before the birth, and then went to "Elim" the Salvation Army Home for unmarried mothers… Not once did my mother ask if I'd made any arrangements and where I was going, what I would need, and what to expect…
My father worked away from home coming home weekends only, and I think it was a case of "ignore it and it'll go away"… But he never brought the subject up… My boyfriends mother (his father was dead) said, that I slept around and I wouldn't know who's baby it was, but it wasn't her sons…
I hitched a ride to Hobart and "booked" in to "Elim", where I was given a lecture by the Matron who stated, we always expected something for nothing, not paying our own way and expecting handouts… At the time my was $10.75 for a 45 hour week, and I'd saved $120 which I gave the Matron… Whilst there I was told not to talk to the other girls, I would be known only as Christine 3, and do as I was told… We worked bloody hard in the hot laundry standing on cement floors…
On Sunday 26th May 1968 I started having terrible back pains they started at 9 am… At 7:30am, I went to the medical Block and told a nurse who gave me two disprins, and I was told to stop "whinging…" I said I didn't think I could go to breakfast, and was told that "indeed I would go"…
At breakfast a woman in a navy cardigan stood behind my chair with her hands on my shoulders, so that I couldn't leave the table… I had been in labour for 10 hours…
After breakfast I went to the hospital part, put on a nighty and waited… I'd gone to the loo when my water broke and on telling two nurses they proceeded to tell I was a liar… how did I know my water had broken, if U had never had a baby before? So there I was with a nurse under each arm, me on my knees in the middle of the floor in a pool of blood…
Finally tied down on the delivery bed and left alone… I rang the bell to say how bad the pains were and the nurse told me "If you think you're going to get out of it this easy, you are mistaken… It'll be hours, and hours, and hours yet…" I never saw a doctor and the nurse left me… I was tied to a bed and left in a room by myself when my daughter was born… A nurse came in carrying a bundle of towels, as my daughter slipped over the edge of the bed… She was caught in mid air…
I remember being given a needle in the leg, then nothing until I woke after dinner… Every time I sat up in bed I fainted, I fainted going to the loo, I fainted on the loo when passing the after birth, I was a mess, I couldn't take a deep breath without fainting… I still hadn't seen a doctor… As no-one had my next-of-kin, one wonders what would have happened had I died…
No-one asked me what I wanted, in fact, no-one discusses anything concerning my baby… When the welfare worker arrived, she had her back to me all through the interview… When I asked about options, she said, they would put her into foster care, but only for 6 months, then she would be made a Ward of the State…
I had no choices except adoption, or take my daughter home and have her murdered… There was nobody who wanted to help… When I signed the papers the social worker refused to let me read them, and in fact covered the document with a piece of paper…
Almost 22 years later I found my daughter… For three years everything seemed to be going well, in fact she asked if she could live with us while she was building… Then one day, she just up and left without telling us… I later received a Lawyers letter, full of non-truths, and half-truths, and most of it about her adoptive mother…
Her natural father (whom I married) plus her sister and her brother still have contact, but according to her Lawyer I make her feel uncomfortable… I have never seen my granddaughter, my husband tells me she looks like our son…. I feel that I was a threat to her adoptive mother… My daughter and I looked, laughed, and even wrote the same… Even now, people stop me in the supermarket asking if I am not her mother, we are so much alike…
I think the worst thing is, not knowing why… I've lost one daughter twice also my granddaughter, but a mother's love never dies…
No medical records were passed on to me after the birth of my first born, nor were they sent to my General Practitioner… Had they been sent… Problems with the birth of my second child could have been avoided…
I personally feel that my mother, placed the same value on me as she did my daughter… Zero… How could my parents claim to love my other two children to the same father, full siblings to my first daughter… Yet treat my first born daughter as garbage, to be thrown away…
To my way of thinking, Love comes before a wedding ring, its not bought with it… Both my parents are dead now, I missed my dad, but my mother just wasn't important any more, she's gone, so what!!!… She was never there for me when I needed her anyway…
My husband and I have been married for almost 28 years… My God, think of the heartache that could have been avoided, if we'd have had a little bit of support for a couple of years…
We were never asked if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest… God help those poor women, because help came from not other quarter. Back then it was always the girls fault, because she "asked for it"… It's one thing for adoptive parents generous or unkind about natural mothers, because they didn't exist, its something else when they come face to face and feel threatened…
The names we gave our children, were not passed on, because Welfare thought it was easier to find a home for a nameless child… Another way for the powers to be, to say they weren't wanted…
Natural mothers are amazed how the community reacts, if a child goes missing…
Everyone understands what the mum is going through, even adoptees and adoptive parents, and yet here we are, Natural Mothers, whose babies have been taken from us, and no-one cared… Could it be, that if the community acknowledged the trauma of natural mothers, then they have to take some of the responsibility… Maybe it's hitting much too close to home… Miscarriage, stillbirth, cot death are acknowledged by the community, but adoption is still spoken in whispers… Where did all these adopted children come from? We weren't allowed by the community to acknowledge we had lost a child, we most certainly were not allowed to grieve.
Story authorised by Christine Burke
Spokeswoman for Origins Tasmania