I Did Tell, I Did (21 page)

About a week after my son’s birth, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I phoned the adoption service and asked to see him. They said it wasn’t possible. I cried down the phone, but to no avail. I made many calls like this but nothing worked. Then I remembered being told that he would be in a foster home for a few weeks, before going to his adoptive parents.

I was distraught and only just functioning. Yes, I looked after Melissa and managed the home but I didn’t look after myself. As a last resort I telephoned my mother. The pain I
was feeling about my baby was so momentous that I suppose I hoped, in my grief, that even she would understand and want to help me. He was her grandson. Surely she would help?

But hope ran true to form. Of course she wouldn’t help me.

‘You’re nothing to me and neither is the bastard you’ve given birth to. I never want to see you again, especially if you’re going to get him back.’ She was angry, heartless, uncaring. She went on. ‘Stay away from me and my family.’

‘My family,’ she said. That said it all, confirmed what I had always known. I wasn’t part of her family. Later I found out that she had told her friends that the baby was my exhusband’s and that it had died at birth. All she cared about was what ‘people’ might say.

The pain I was feeling was indescribable: an ache so great that I thought it would kill me. Physically I was drained. Even if I tried to forget I had just given birth, nature wouldn’t let me. My breasts had filled with milk and were very sore. This was so cruel. I hadn’t been able to feed my daughter for more than a couple of weeks because I had very little milk, but now, with no baby to suckle, I had an abundance of food to give. How could this happen? Didn’t my body know that he wasn’t there? Couldn’t it hear my heart crying out for him?

The days were made bearable by my three-year-old daughter. It’s hard to be down when you have a small child, full of energy and laughter, around you. But there were times when she sensed my grief and came to me for a cuddle. She would keep saying that she loved me, showering my face with kisses. On the rare occasions when I was able to cry tears, she would
gently brush them away with her tiny hand and comfort me. She was my blessing and my sanity.

But I couldn’t accept I would never see my beloved son again. I started ringing anyone I thought might know where he was. I pretended to be a social worker, a nurse from the hospital, a receptionist at the GP’s surgery, anyone to try and find out where he was. And then. It happened. Pretending to be from social services, I rang the church adoption society and said I needed to call the foster parents of a child who went for adoption on 6 July and whose mother’s name was Cassie Black (my maiden name). I held my breath as a woman said she would go and get the number from the file. She returned and not only gave me the telephone number but also the foster parents’ address. I thanked her politely, hoping she couldn’t hear my heart pounding in my chest. I put the phone down.

Thinking back, I realise how stupid my next actions were, how unfair they were on my little three-year-old girl. But back then, desperate to be reunited with my son, they didn’t seem stupid or unfair at all.

The town where the foster mother lived was a few miles away. The day after I got the address, a few weeks after Jack was born, we boarded a bus to go there. Not knowing the area, I wasn’t sure how far out of the town centre it would be so Melissa and I walked and walked for what seemed like miles. Then I saw it: the road where my baby son was living. The house I was looking for was towards the end. My heart was pounding in my chest, my hands were sweaty and my whole body shaking.

I hadn’t looked beyond seeing him again. I didn’t know what would happen or what my next move would be.

For a while I just stood there, on the opposite side of the road, holding Melissa’s little hand. The house was large and surrounded by a beautiful garden. There was a pram just outside the front door. It was a hot day and someone had draped a canopy over the occupant. Was that him? Was he in there? Was it Jack?

Although I wanted to see him, to look in the pram, I was terrified and frozen to the spot. I didn’t know what to do. If I went over to the pram and it wasn’t him, what then? But if I went over to the pram and it
was
him, what then? Perhaps I was scared I might pick him up and run. I don’t know. My emotions were all over the place. Terror filled my heart and before I knew what I was doing I began to walk quickly back down the road. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t be able to see him and then walk away. I had to try and think things through.

The next day I went to a baby shop and bought some blue booties. Again Melissa and I boarded the bus and took the long walk that led to where my baby was. I was calmer that day. I don’t know why. The pram was outside and I took a deep breath, making sure no one was in sight. I told Melissa to stay where she was, on the other side of the road. It was a quiet road. I hadn’t seen a car either time we’d visited. I walked towards the gate, hoping and praying that my baby son was there, in the pram. As I got closer, I knew he was. My heart racing, I bent over to see the bluest eyes I had ever seen. He was beautiful, a beautiful baby boy. My baby boy. My son.

I just gazed at him, full of love for this tiny human being. Then I began to feel scared, scared of what I might do, scared that someone would come out of the house and catch me. I placed the booties in the pram and ran back to my little girl. Now I was crying, crying like I wouldn’t ever stop. I had to get home, we had to get home. She took my hand and we hurried back to the main road, and the bus that would take us back to the bungalow where we lived.

That evening I just sat and stared into space. I had no one to talk to about all of this. Was I doing wrong by seeing my baby? Was it against the law to see my son? How could it have been? I had given birth to him just a few weeks before. I felt so alone and wished yet again I had a caring mother, the kind I could confide in. I thought about everything I had been told about adoption: that it is best for the child. He would be given new parents, a new mother. But I was his mother. Couldn’t I be the best?

It seems that there are winners in adoption but there is also a loser. A loser of the most momentous kind ever. Yes, perhaps it would be best for my son to have two parents and everything he needs. Yes, it would be wonderful for the family he would go to because they would have a new baby to love and care for. And yes, he would be happy. But then there was me. I had so much love to give him and all I got was pain. Pain, grief, heartache and guilt. What could I do with the feelings that were raging inside me? How could I cope with the huge, huge loss I had suffered?

I was told once that to lose a child to adoption is like losing a child to death. But it isn’t. It’s worse. Death is final. You
grieve, accept and eventually move on. It is irreversible. When a baby is taken for adoption and placed with another mother, the grief is far harder to bear. I would always know that somewhere out there was my son. A little boy growing up in a new family. He would be unaware of me but not a day would go by without me thinking about him. Death had to be easier than that.

After a restless night I decided to go back to the house where he was living and sneak another look. Maybe this time pick him up for a cuddle. A very much needed cuddle.

On reaching the house, I waited until I was sure no one was around. Asking Melissa to stay where she was, I approached the pram.

But it was empty. I couldn’t see him! It was as though my heart stopped. There was an awful, painful ache in the pit of my stomach. Before I had a chance to do anything, the door of the house burst open and I saw a lady standing there with a concerned look on her face.

‘Would you like to come in?’ she asked quietly. ‘I presume you’ve come to see Jack?’

I couldn’t speak. How did she know? Why wasn’t she cross? What should I do now? I just shook my head and started to walk away.

‘Don’t go,’ she called. ‘Please come in and I’ll make us some tea.’ She looked kind.

‘I have my little girl with me. I was only looking, I didn’t…’ I never finished the sentence, because I was fighting back the tears. I couldn’t cry. If I cried now I would never stop.

‘I’ll get your little girl,’ she replied and ushered me into the hall of her house.

When she returned with Melissa, two small children ran down the stairs and asked if she wanted to play in the garden. They skipped off happily together, oblivious to the drama that was unfolding. As we went into the kitchen, I saw a baby, my baby, just waking from his sleep, in a crib.

‘He’s due a feed,’ his foster mother told me. ‘I’ll get some tea and then feed him.’

She brought the tea and a plate of biscuits over to where I was sitting. I was trying not to look in the crib, trying not to see the child I was aching for. She told me that she had seen me the first time, when I had stood opposite her house. Then the following day when she found the booties, she realised who I must be. She asked me about my daughter and myself, about the baby’s father and about my life.

I could hardly speak. My voice was small and weak, but the pain in my heart was huge and powerful.

She took the tiny being out of the crib and started to give him his bottle. After a while she asked me if I wanted to give him the rest of his feed.

I nodded, totally overwhelmed.

She picked Jack up and came over to where I was sitting and placed him in my arms.

I wasn’t ready for the feelings that came rushing through me. I wasn’t ready for this huge gush of mixed-up emotion: fear, panic, pain and love. It took me by surprise. I thought my heart would burst.

And then the tears, oceans of them. Melissa saw this and came running in from the garden to try and brush them away.

‘It’s OK. Mummy isn’t crying because she’s sad but because she’s happy,’ the foster mum said. ‘She’ll be OK in a moment. Sometimes it’s good to cry.’ With that, my little girl returned to playing with her new friends.

‘Would you like to talk about it?’ enquired the woman who was caring for my son. ‘Just tell me what you want for your baby and I’ll see if I can help.’

I don’t know how I managed to talk. I felt totally exhausted. The past few months had taken their toll on my resources and I was completely shattered. But tell her I did. No holds barred. I told her how my life had been up to this point, about having no love from my mother and how she refused to help me. I told of my failed marriage, the affair, the rejection and the tablets. But not about him, the evil, nasty man. I never told her about that. I couldn’t talk about him. It was too huge and horrible. So I never told anyone about that.

When I was spent, physically and emotionally tired beyond description, I looked up to find this lovely lady crying with me.

‘You should have kept him,’ she said. ‘I’ll help you keep him if you like.’

Did she really say that? No one had ever said that.

‘But they said I couldn’t,’ I whispered. ‘They said it was best for him if I had him adopted and that they were concerned that I wouldn’t cope and then I’d lose both of my children.’

‘If you love your baby and have a home for him, there is nothing to stop you from keeping him. Nothing has been signed yet
and so legally he is still yours.’ She sounded confident about this. Determined to make this right. ‘If you love him, he belongs with you.’

‘Of course I love him. I’ve always loved him, but sometimes throughout all of this I haven’t been able to think straight. I came off the tablets during my pregnancy so that he came to no harm but I suffered severe withdrawal. I’m fine again now.’ I was feeling slightly stronger now that I had someone on my side. Someone who actually believed in me, which was a new experience for me.

She stood up and took Jack from me. I was able to let him go now that I somehow believed it was all going to work out well. This time all my prayers and all my hopes would pay off. This time I would have a happy ending.

She suggested that I go home and prepare to have my baby back. It was like a dream. I left and we went back to the bungalow to get ready for the rest of my life with my children—both of them. My son and daughter.

I had kept Melissa’s pram and cot and all her baby things so I brought them down from the attic and I cleaned the pram until it shone. Then I sat down and tried to explain what was going to happen to my tiny little girl. I told her that when I had been away I had had a baby. I tried to tell her that because I wasn’t well he had been living with the lady whose house we had visited. I then told her that we were going to bring him home the following day. She giggled and danced around the room, delighted with the idea. It all seemed so unreal.

I didn’t sleep that night, and the following day I was in a daze. I gathered together a set of clothes that I had bought to put in the pram and then, full of excitement, apprehension, fear—I’m not sure, possibly all of those—we boarded a bus to where my precious son was living.

The foster mum was waiting for me. She made us some tea and gave my daughter a little cake. Her husband was coming home early to help with the baby’s things and then they would give us a lift home.

I couldn’t believe this was happening. I don’t know how I got through the day. Yes, I was ecstatic that we were all going to be together, but it had been such an awful, emotionally charged ten months since I first found out that I was pregnant that I was physically and mentally drained.

We got back to my home and, after seeing that I had everything I needed, the foster parents left, promising to let the authorities know that my baby son was back with me. Back where he belonged.

That evening, feeling completely exhausted but happier than I had ever been, I bathed both children and put them to bed. Jack was in a cot in my bedroom, the same cot that Melissa had slept in when she was first born. I went to bed and lay there gazing at him, memorising him, until the early hours of the morning.

I don’t remember much about the next couple of days, except that I took the children to the local shop because I needed some groceries. A friend of Larry’s came out of the grocer’s, looked in the pram and laughed.