Sydney Poitier is Dead. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Now?

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Reunion

“It was 1970, and an out-of-wedlock pregnancy was still considered socially shameful. The Civil Rights movement was in full force. The lawful integration of public schools was in its infancy stage. Black families were cautiously moving into white, urban neighborhoods.

And, I fell in love with a young man who was African American; I fell in love with a young man who was the “wrong” color. I innocently gave myself to him and became pregnant before everyone else thought that I should. I dared to stand my ground, insisting on giving my child the gift of life rather than to seek an abortion. As the saga played out, those were the last real choices I was allowed to make.”

Recently I reunited with a reader who I knew at the Salvation Army Booth Memorial Hospital in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Phyllis and I both arrived at the home in September of 1970. Through exchanged emails, Phyllis is sharing her recently unmasked feelings and reflections. She has given me permission to publish them here:

Sydney Poitier is dead. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Now

In the late 60’s white girls didn’t dare fall in love with a black man. For sure they should not consider marrying a black man. And, under no circumstances should they get pregnant by a black man.

In 1967, Sidney Poitier, Katherine Houghton, Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy shined a bright light on the race mixing issue with the movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. The film is revered today, but not well received then — except by those who realized that the true measure of a person is based on character and actions. By 1970, not much had changed in middle America. Love was only love if you were marrying — but, certainly not between races. The liberal pretense of social acceptance of differences proved to be a false, family value if your daughter was the white girl. Suddenly prejudice was justified, based on the flimsy excuse of parental concern and protection.

While unmarried girls who got in a ‘family way” were treated like pariahs of the worst sort, girls who had the audacity to love and appreciate the attributes of a man regardless of the color of his skin were ostracized and treated with disrespect by both sides of the issue. Consequently, the young woman who faced the decision to surrender her bastard child to a better situation and future, was also forced to realize that her beloved infant was saddled with the additional burden of limited acceptance of a mixed race heritage. As terrible as any first mother’s decision, the extra awareness of racial prejudice was an unbearable strain — not easily understood in 2022.

My decision to surrender my child for adoption under constant coercion and manipulation by family, friends, and well-organized social systems was more difficult than I can convey to a society unused to the concept. But, the women faced with those additional burdens have my eternal admiration and respect.

I hope their children will one day come for dinner.

Thank you, Phyllis.

Mother & Father Reunion Photo for Angela 1996

Love, Loss, Reunion and the Unknown

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Reunion

“The door opened, and there she was! I stepped in, reached out and pulled her to me. Tears slid down my cheeks as I whispered into her ear, “I have waited for this for so long.” From the first time I spoke to her on the phone, up to and including this very day, I have never been able to find the words to describe the soul-body experience of that moment. There are no words. There are deep, abiding feelings—feelings that are ever-changing and often too big to hold. There are feelings of love, loss, guilt, shame, confusion, happiness, gratitude, fear, doubt, anger and sometimes despair. But, on that first-meeting-day—the day I held my firstborn in my arms again after more than twenty-three years of separation—there was only joy.”

Today marks the 27th anniversary of our in-person reunion. Like every aspect of this once-in-a-lifetime relationship, there was no way to prepare us for how it will feel. No class, no tutor, no playbook or script. Just one, giant leap from the darkness of loss and profound sadness into the light of the unknown, with a dash of hope.

We have done our best in an untenable situation. We have shared both joys and sorrows. We have talked for hours, laughing together and learning from each other. And, we have broken each other’s hearts. Currently, we are separated by a chasm of confusion and misunderstanding. The path between us is cluttered with obstacles from the past: unfair truths and dirty, little rumors. The present is obstructed by our inabilities to relate to each other’s pain. I can’t know what it is like to go through life feeling rejected by the one person who was supposed to love and protect her. Likewise, my daughter can’t possibly understand how it feels to be the last person standing to shoulder the blame.

I wonder…..Is there a magical key that could open our minds and our hearts to each other? Once opened, could we reach inside and touch each other’s pain and hold each other’s hurts? Could we side-step the past and all of its messy debris?

My dear daughter, I thank you for making space for me in your life. I thank you for the gift of a loving granddaughter and a delightful great-granddaughter. I am grateful to have met your family, and been befriended by your mother. I love you forever.

Adoption: The Lies Behind the Truth

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Reunion

“…..I took a business trip to the area where {my daughter’s father} lived……..I called {him} as soon as I arrived, and we got together. The moment I saw him, he told me I hadn’t changed a bit. He had, but I kept those thoughts to myself. He was shorter than I remembered and had grown thicker in middle age. His hairline had moved back considerably….We talked late into the night. I gave him photos of his daughter and granddaughter that he kept staring at as we talked. We talked about our past. When I asked him why he never had children, he replied, “How could I after what I did to you and {our daughter}?”

The rest of the words we exchanged that night lie on the editing room floor. The publisher was concerned about liable. My editor cautioned me…..too much truth can cause additional harm. The memoir was forty-five years in the making, and I just wanted it to be done. I pondered the options, and I guessed at the outcome. Yes, some of these facts could cause additional pain to my daughter, but didn’t she have the right to hear what he had said?

Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?

Yes, the rest of the story is true. He said it matter-of-factly and seemingly without remorse. I was shocked. I was hurt. And, I was saddened by what he shared. We had been in communication with each other for 25 years, and this was the first I had heard of the rest of his story. He is gone now, and I am left holding his truth.

Is it necessary? My editor and I debated, and in the end, I gave in. Surely, a trained professional knows best. I paid this person to guide me, and she had a valid point. Perhaps it wasn’t necessary to share truths that had no chance of changing the past, but every chance of negatively impacting the here, the now and the future.

Is it kind? Ah. This is the tough one. Will the truth really set us free? As this story continues to unfold, this truth may have set me free. But, I chose to protect the others, and although that decision has backfired on me, the innocent one remains ignorant and one of the guilty ones has been absolved.

I lie awake nights wrestling with these questions. Yes, I am holding and hiding some truths. But, I am not willing to risk the consequences of exposing them now. This one thing I know: We will support whichever belief temporarily stops the pain. If the truth is tearing us apart, then the next story, real or imagined, can possibly salve the wounds.

It may be the truth, but just for today, sharing it feels neither necessary nor kind.

The Home for Unwed Mothers

This bit of history, in and of itself, needs to be recognized and demands to be told. Young people today are incredulous to learn that birth control was not readily available to unmarried women, and most especially to minors. Eyebrows are raised over wide, open eyes when I share that my first child was born in a "home for unwed mothers." Listeners are aghast to learn that between WWII and 1973, a million and a half women surrendered children to adoption, caving into to family and social pressures. These young mothers were told they were unfit to raise their own children. They were told they must never speak the truth about where they had been. Their adoptions were closed, and they would never again have contact with their lost children. 

In 1970-1971, I spent five months at the Salvation Army Booth Memorial Hospital. There I bonded with dozens of pregnant women, mostly teenagers, who like me, had been banished from their homes, and were sent away to hide their sins and their shame.

There are varied and sundry stories about these homes. Many are terrifying, and at the very least, most are profoundly sad. I did not want to go away. I was filled with fear over leaving the only home I had ever known. I did not want to leave behind the boy that I loved....the father of my unborn child. But, the choice was not mine to make.

For me, the home became my respite from the storm that my home life had become. My parents were furious with me. My boyfriend rejected the idea of marriage. I could confide in no one, and discussing the changes that were happening to my body and in my mind was forbidden. 

My memoir, Choiceless: A Birthmother's Story of Love, Loss and Reunion includes a retelling of what it was like for me.

Salvation Army Booth Memorial Hospital, Wauwatosa, WI

A Tribute to Ann: My Daughter's Mother

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Reunion

“Her adoptive parents would be exalted as ‘selfless and generous,’ whereas I have been labeled as selfish and immoral. They would be heroes for adopting ‘outside of their race,’ while I was shunned — by both blacks and whites — for dating outside of mine. I believe then, as I do now, that keeping Ryanne would have brought shame on her innocent head. In her new family, she would always be the ‘chosen one.’ Had I kept her, she would have become the sad consequence of my bad choices. I could offer her only love. They would love her, too, and give her so much more.

For months I had held this constant thought: Ryanne would be the gift I would share with the world. Now, I was being called upon to live that truth; it was time to release her once and for all. I would share her with this stranger-mom, all the while holding a special place for her in my heart.”

Still, my daughter was never far from my mind. I married, birthed and raised two more children. From the routine meeting of my children’s daily needs to the elaborate birthday cakes I baked and the Halloween costumes I meticulously stitched, I pondered the woman…the other mother….who was caring for the child I left behind; the woman who filled the role for Ryanne that I was unable to fill.

When I found Ryanne I was relieved, but not surprised when I was warmly received by her mother, Ann. “I am so glad you called,” she had said the first time we spoke. I could tell she had been waiting for that moment for 23 years, the same as I.

Just three weeks ago, Ann’s big and beautiful heart gave out, and she passed on. When we spoke just a week earlier, and she told me, as she often had over the years, “I love you, Ruby. You are a member of our family.”

Ann gave Ryanne and and me permission to be a part of each other’s lives, without guilt or reservation. All adoptive family reunions do not foster such a positive outcome. One young man recently shared with me that he could not sustain an ongoing relationship with his birth mother, because she could not get beyond her jealousy of the relationship he has with the woman who raised him. A second young man is very excited to begin to know his mother, but is not allowed to discuss her with his adoptive parents, who are feeling a sense of rejection in his even wanting to know the woman who gave him birth.

I have had the privilege of talking one adoptive mom through her fears of abandonment as her daughter began a relationship with her birth mother. I was able to tell her that this first mother knows her place and recognizes the deep love shared by her daughter and the woman who raised her. I gave birth and the gift of life. Ann and her husband provided a home, a family, encouragement, acceptance, nurturing, laughter and love.

Ann was my dear friend. Over twenty-six years, we talked for hours on the phone. We exchanged letters and photos. We laughed and cried together. A year ago we were blessed with a great-granddaughter. Ann always made sure I saw the latest photos and heard the most recent antics of the most amazing child of all time—on this topic, we firmly agreed!

Ann was a woman of substance. She was one of a kind.

Ann, you are my hero. I will always be grateful to you beyond my ability to express it in mere words. It has been an honor and a privilege to know you. While mine is a debt that can never be repaid, I will always speak well of you, and I will honor you all of the days of my life, through my love for our daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter.

And, I will miss you.

God Danced the Day You Were Born: A First Mother's Prayer

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss & Reunion

“I had an odd mixture of excitement and worry. I was somewhat eager to go home, to see Kenny, to start over. But, I was also starkly aware that the beginning of Ryanne’s life was really the end of my relationship with her. She would go away within a few days, and I would be alone. She had been my constant companion for the past many months. My parents rejected me, Kenny refused to marry me, and my boss fired me. Ryanne’s presence within me — my body nurturing her little body —had given my life purpose through it all. I had no idea how I was going to go on without her, especially now that I had seen her beautiful face.”

Today is my daughter’s 49th birthday. From her first birthday to her 22nd birthday, I could only whisper a wish into the Universe, praying she would know—that her mother would know—that another mom was out there somewhere smiling through burning tears, wondering—always wondering—Is she OK? Is she happy? Is she loved?

But, on March 3, 1994, six weeks following our first phone conversation, this first mother picked up the phone and called her first-born child. “Happy birthday, my beautiful daughter. God danced the day you were born.” And, for 25 years, I called, I sang, I sent cards and gifts. For 25 years I embraced the miracle of my reunion with my little-girl-grown-woman.

And then—she changed her mind. My daughter decided our relationship needed to end. I don’t know why. Perhaps it is just my turn to feel the rejection she tells me was hers to bear all the years of her life. Perhaps it is just too painful to know me now, when she didn’t know me then. Perhaps she just plain doesn’t like me. I just don’t know.

But just as she had no choice in her adoption, I have no recourse in her choice.

So, I wait. I weep. I wish. I regret. I love.

Today I will call her mother—the woman who raised her, and who welcomed me into her life and into her family, and I will try once again to find the words that will express the depth of my gratitude. I will reach out to my granddaughter and to my great-granddaughter, in absolute joy for the place they hold for me in their lives.

Today I will thank my youngest daughter for her loving support and understanding—for her friendship and her delightful sense of humor; and for her representation of all that is right in the world. I will reach out to her young, adult children—my grandchildren—and tell them that I love them. I will thank my partner for his love, and for holding me in the middle of many nights, until the last tear has fallen.

And, into the Universe I will whisper…..I love you forever, baby girl. God danced the day you were born.

She Calls Me Grandy

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Reunion

“Just as [my first daughter] and I were becoming acquainted, [Kerry} and her boyfriend came to me one Sunday afternoon to tell me they were expecting a baby. History repeating itself, I sat across the table from my own seventeen-year-old daughter and told her I would support her no matter what she chose…..Having walked in my little girl’s shoes, I realized for the first time that my losses, grief, and growth came together in that moment with a profound impact on her life and the life of her unborn child.”

When my relinquished daughter and I met in 1994, I learned for the first time that I was grandmother to the most adorable and precocious four-year-old girl. What incredible news for a 40-years-young woman! And, as is the ongoing reality in my story of loves lost and reunited, I experienced deep sadness on the heels of my joy. Not only had I missed the first 23 years of my first daughter’s life, but I was not there to share her joys as a young mother. I simply was not there.

And then I learned the daughter I had raised….my cheerleader….my friend….my joy….was pregnant at the age of seventeen. Because Kerry knew my history, she and her young man came to me in confidence to share their news. They resolved to stay together and to raise their child.

“Tears filled my eyes as I heard her boyfriend’s profession of love for her. Even though my adult mind fast-forwarded to problems I knew they would experience together, I was grateful for the support she was receiving from him, and for the support I was able to extend to them both.”

[Emma Rose] was born on November 1, 1994. I was the third person on the birthing team. I had attended all of the classes, and in the wee hours of this morning, I sat with Mom and Dad until we arrived at the hospital at 5:30. I was right there — at my daughter’s side — comforting, laughing, and holding her hand, right up until we saw the perfect face of our new, baby girl.

As time went on, the young family moved in with me. My son was in college at the time, and we all lived together in 1,100 square feet, sharing one bathroom and making it work. Sadly, the young parents found they could not bridge their differences, and Dad moved out. Single at the time, I worked at my marketing position, while Kerry stayed home and took care of her daughter and tended to household chores. I looked forward to coming home from the office or business trip, swooping up my granddaughter, and stealing her away to my tiny bedroom. There, I would turn on some music and swirl her around, singing and dancing. Sometimes we would sit side-by-side on the piano bench, pounding out a joyful tune. Other times were for snuggling on the couch and reading. To my great joy, Emma dubbed me with my most prized name……Grandy!

When I eventually re-married, and my daughter began her own independent life, I hoped I had given her a solid jumping off place, and she knew she would always have my loving support. Kerry married, and when Emma was six-years-old she became big brother to Jacob.

Today, Emma Rose turns twenty-five! We have all experienced a great, big chunk of perfect and imperfect life in this quarter century. Emma grew up with a large, supportive family: Loving parents and LOTS of grandparents in our blended gaggle of divorced and re-married adults. She always had the biggest cheering section at every childhood event, from dance and guitar recitals to her ongoing performances as a singer-songwriter. When she was diagnosed with type-1 Diabetes at the age of eleven, we all traveled whatever distances necessary to cram ourselves into her hospital room, and we held each other up. When she grew up and fell in love, we welcomed Chase into our lives, and yes — he too, calls me Grandy!

At a recent reading of my memoir, Kerry, Emma and I had a tearful conversation of awareness and wonder. If I had not known the pain of relinquishing a child to adoption — of a later-in-life reunion that both thrilled me and left me bereaved by the lost time and opportunities — would I have been able to offer Kerry the support that I had. Kerry is an amazing mother to both of her children. She is an incredible daughter to me. And Emma? Emma is simply the most kind, smart, witty, beautiful and delightful person I know.

The yin and the yang. The happy and the sad. The joy and the sorrow. I may never find peace or self-forgiveness for having given into the pressures to surrender my first child, but I will not shun the joy and serenity that are the rewards of my second chance.

Happy birthday, Emma Rose! I love you forever!

Emma Rose and Kerry Leigh

The Choice You Think I Made

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Reunion

My new sweetheart has taken me into the woods, backpacking and camping in some of the most beautiful vistas of the Pacific Northwest mountains. I love the serenity I feel in the wilderness, and it has given Ryanne and me an unexpected spiritual connection. When I called her for advice on supplies and appropriate clothing prior to my first time out on a backpacking trip, we realized we have this shared interest in common too. And then Ryanne said, “When you go out into the woods, find the largest , oldest tree, and place your hand and forehead upon it. Feel the energy of all of the people who have passed it and know that all trees are energetically connected, and all of that energy connects you and me. We are never separate from one another when we are on some path in some woods.”

It has been more than a year since Ryanne and I have spoken or communicated in any way. We shared twenty-five years of stumbling along the awkward and unknown path of our first mother/first daughter journey. She was a young woman of 23, and I was 40 when we reunited in 1994. We did what we could do to bridge the gap caused by our painful separation just days after her birth.

I believed I was doing my best…..but, now I am left to wonder what that would even look like. Phone calls? Letters? Photos? E-mails and text messages? Occasional visits from across the continent? Shared stories? Tears? Laughter?

The estrangement is not my choice, but it is my reality. Just as my daughter did not choose to be surrendered to adoption. She did not choose to be mixed race. By all appearances, those decisions were mine. She was told she should be grateful for having been a “chosen child.” Over and over she was told her mother loved her and wanted her to have every opportunity for a good life; a life her own mother could not provide.

No, she has told me — she did not feel chosen — she felt rejected — by me. Yes, she was raised and nurtured in a big, loving family — one of the best I have had the pleasure to know — but, the lingering question remained — why didn’t my mother want me?

How can she feel or relate to the pressures put upon unmarried mothers during the years of forced and coerced adoption — when innocent children were labeled as illegitimate? How could she know the racial tension that existed just years after the passing of the Civil Rights Bill? (Please….I am not minimizing the reality of the ongoing and ever-present bigotry of our culture). There is no way she can feel the shame I believed I would carry and place on her innocent head. She can’t hear the voices of family members, social workers, doctors and religious advisers repeatedly saying…

….Do the right thing. Don’t be selfish. Let her go.

So for now, she has surrendered me. In 1994 I steeled myself to the possibility she would want nothing to do with me. I was as prepared as I could be before reaching out to her mother that first day. Over the years I became comfortable in the belief that we would continue to build our relationship — whatever it was — however we could.

I was not prepared to lose her again.

So, I connect where I can — where I did the 22-plus years before our reunion — in my heart. And, now — in the woods. My dear daughter — I love you forever.

Kathy and David - A First Mother's Love

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Reunion

Recently, my friend Kathy — whom I had met at [Booth Memorial Hospital and Home for Unwed Mothers] so many years ago — passed away. She had reunited with her son, and she and I spoke just days before her death. Through her family, I was able to contact her son. We had an amazing phone conversation, and I shared with him stories of his birth. I was able to confirm the deep love his mother had for him, and her sadness that never healed following their separation. I was there when he was born. I held him as an infant. I supported his mother then, and [we were friends] for many decades. He was grateful to hear stories of his mother that shed a new light on his memories of her.

Kathy and I met at the home in 1970, and took an immediate liking to one another. She was three months from her due date when I arrived. It wasn’t long before we learned we were from the same home town. Her gregarious personality and infectious laugh belied her deep sadness that her love had immediately abandoned her when he learned of her pregnancy. She still loved him, and she desperately wanted to marry him and to keep her unborn child. But, like the rest of us, she was convinced that being a single mother would bring shame upon her child’s innocent head.

Her son was born in December, and for many years, I knew him as “Jeffrey.” Kathy and I both worked on the hospital floor during our time at the home — she was a nursery aide, and I was a floor and delivery aide. That privilege allowed me to witness the brief time she shared with her son. I was able to hold him in my arms, and my friend spent nearly every spare minute in the nursery with her baby boy. She was inconsolable throughout those last days with him. I couldn’t think of one comforting word that made any sense at all, so I just sat with her. “Yes,” I agreed. “He is the most beautiful baby boy, and he looks just like you!” She smiled through her tears, but there was no denying that her loving heart was breaking a bit more each day.

More than two months later, I returned to our home town after delivering my baby girl. I called Kathy immediately. Sworn to silence in a shroud of secrecy, we had only each other to talk to about our experiences and our profound grief. We persevered with as much as courage as we could muster, and shared many good times. We worked together in the same office, and in the evenings we played softball, bowled, danced and drank a lot of beer! We raised our voices in song as members of Sweet Adelines, and while cruising downtown in her 1960-something Dodge. Often we cried together as we talked about our lost lovers and babies. We were inseparable friends.

My marriage and eventual pregnancy caused tension between us. Kathy could not understand how I could betray my firstborn child by birthing, keeping and raising another. She held firm to her opinion, and had no other children. I, on the other hand, was desperate to fill the “mother hole.” My motives may not have been altruistic at the time, but I am grateful for the privilege of being mom to the two children I did raise.

Years later, when Kathy’s brother died in a tragic accident, I went to the funeral. There we embraced and healed our friendship. When I reunited with my daughter in 1994, she was one of the first people I called. And in 2001, she met her son. Jeffrey became David — and, Kathy became whole.

My friend has passed on, and left behind the son she grew to know and love, his wife and her granddaughter. Our last conversation was about her gratitude in having spent time with them. “At least he knows my family, and even though I won’t be here for him, they will.”

There is tremendous fear on all sides of the adoption triangle when considering reunion. Will I be rejected by my parent? Does my child even want me in his life? Am I better off not knowing? Will the child I raised love his birth mother more than he loves me?

When David courageously sought out his mother, he healed at least one broken and tormented soul.

We are complicated, we humans. Reunion stories have healed and broken hearts. But, the one thing I believe without doubt — Where there is life, there is hope. Life is temporary. Love is eternal.

Rest easy, my friend. The circle is completed.

The Absent Father in the Adoption Triangle

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Reunion

“In an effort to keep my relationship with Kenny alive, and to communicate with the one person who I believed to be my ally, I regularly wrote to him. I prattled on about the pregnancy, my friends, my adventures, my work, and how much I missed him. I begged him to write to me.…..Eventually, he did write a letter. I read that letter over and over. I stared at his handwriting on the envelope, feeling a strong connection through my printed name that had been inscribed with his own hand. I believe that was the only written communication I ever received from him. But, I was so thrilled with that letter! Months later, when my heart was broken and my grief gave way to anger, I destroyed that letter along with any evidence of him. Years later, I could not recall a single word of it.”

I wanted to get married. I wanted to raise my child with her father. As a naive 17-year-old girl, in love with an 18-year-old boy, I believed with all of my terrified heart that we could make it work. He did not. He was college-bound and not at all ready to be tied down to me or to a child. It took him several weeks to muster the courage to share his decision with me, while my girlfriend and I were excitedly making wedding and baby shower plans.

Never mind that we were teenagers. Ignore the fact we were an interracial couple in a 1970’s Midwest city. I knew if we didn’t marry, there was no way my parents would allow me to stay home to birth and raise my bi-racial child.

I went away. I lived at the home for unwed mothers for five months. One month after our daughter’s birth, I took him to see her, and begged him to marry me. I thought if he could just see her…..but, he held firmly to his decision, and within a matter of days, I relinquished my parental rights…..forever.

I can’t help but wonder….did he ever feel like a father? Did he take a second look at little girls who would be close to our daughter’s age over the years, as did I? Did he think of her at all? And, on Father’ Day….did he want to scream it from the roof tops that he too was a father?

If no one has ever told you, Happy Father’s Day, Kenny! I wish you could have known her.

Mother's Day in the Adoption Triangle

As Mother's Day approaches, I am reminded of that Sunday in May, 1971. It was just two short months after my relinquished daughter's birth.

My siblings, nephews and niece gathered at my parents’ home. It was a typical Mother's Day celebration for the rest of the family. None of the adults showed any sign of awareness, that maybe....just maybe…. I might be experiencing a certain measure of sadness. I dared not speak of my grief to my parents and risk ruining my mother's special day. I talked to my friend from the home, where we had been hidden away. Kathy and I comforted each other, and shared our sadness. We held our common secret, as we were sworn to do, and we grieved the loss of our children.

On that day and every Mother's Day since, I have thought of the woman who was raising my little girl, and I uttered a heartfelt "thank you." Two little words that come nowhere near the expression of my gratitude. I have never been able to adequately do so, no matter the number of words I choose.

For twenty-five years I have known this lovely lady. Every year on Mother's Day, we connect on the phone and we wish each other the best of days. I thank her for the loving care she gave to our girl, and she thanks me for the girl herself. 

Now we are two mothers….two grandmothers….and, this year we are two GREAT-grandmothers!

Happy Mother’s Day Ann, Angela, and Sydney!

The Sisterhood of Maternity Home Mothers

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Reunion

“In the smoking room, I learned a lot about the culture of unwed, pregnant teenagers. There were girls who were in daily contact with the fathers of their babies. There were girls who disguised the identity of the birth fathers in order to protect their ongoing relationships with them. There were girls who took their babies home and married the babies’ fathers. There were girls whose boyfriends immediately broke off the relationship when they learned their girlfriends were pregnant. There were girls who were going to take their babies home to be raised as a sibling. Whatever the circumstances in this intimate community room, the shame lifted and the emotional healing began. The contrast between the home environment I had left behind and my new home environment was notable. There was laughter where there had been tears. There was chatter where there had been silence. And where there had been judgment, there was total acceptance.”

Yes! In 1970 there was a smoking room where pregnant girls chain-smoked, knitted, crocheted, played board games and became friends. (Sorry, Children! There was a world of ignorance around fetal health in those days!)

From the perch of maturity, I look back on the the experience of being “sent away” with sadness and regret. But, at the time, the Booth Memorial Home for Unwed Mothers was a respite from the storm that raged through my family home following the news of my pregnancy. Sworn to secrecy by my parents, I had no one to talk to about the emotional and physical changes ravishing my 17-year-old body.

But, in the home, surrounded by other pregnant teens, there was little else on our collective minds. We talked about it all. We laughed. We cried. We comforted each other.

I am grateful to each and everyone of those girls, some of whom are my friends today. A huge thank you to the growing numbers of women in my life who have walked a similar path at the same time in history. The older I get, the more aware I become of the traumatic impact of adoption. I would be lost in guilty remorse without the sisterhood that has opened up to me since my memoir was published.

Mothers. Sisters. Survivors.

Salvation Army Booth Memorial Hospital, Wauwatosa, WI

The Shame That Bound Us

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Reunion

“My mother scheduled a doctor visit for me……There was no smile on our family doctor’s face, and no chitchat. He curtly gave me directions, and I was completely embarrassed as I lay on the exam table with my feet in stirrups. As he examined me and I winced in pain, he showed no compassion, made no apologies. There wasn’t a nurse in the room as he did the most invasive part of the exam. The doctor’s disappointment in me was palpable. He simply stated, “Yup, you’re pregnant",” and then uttered something about being a huge disappointment to my parents.”

He was the only doctor I had known. In the old days of doctors’ house calls, I always started to cry as soon as his car pulled up to the curb in front of our house. He treated me for mumps, measles, pneumonia and migraine headaches. He always had a hypodermic needle in his little, black bag. If he had to be called, there would be a painful injection.

But, I was never more uncomfortable with him than the day of my first pelvic exam. I walked alone to his office, and shivered in fear in the air-conditioned waiting room. The receptionist was expressionless and made no attempt at small talk. My parents were embarrassed and ashamed of me. They wanted no part of a face-to-face meeting with this family doctor of 20 years. No. This was the first of many lessons I would have to learn on my own.

I was sworn to secrecy, and forbidden to speak to anyone about the pregnancy. I was violently ill from morning sickness, and had to fabricate stories of illness to mask my symptoms. I had been fired from my job, because it was a “family business” that could not condone a single, teenage pregnancy. I was surrounded by blame and shame for the “trouble I had gotten myself into.”

From post WWII until 1973, single mothers were shunned and shamed. We were cloistered in maternity homes or hidden away with out-of-state friends and relatives.

We were all told the same things: What we had done was wrong. We were not fit to be mothers. Some nice, childless couple could give our babies the love and homes they deserved.

We were not given options. We were not given hope. Above all things, we were told, it was our responsibility to free our innocent children from our sinful shame, and do the right thing: Relinquish our children to adoption.

I just learned that a Christian group in my community is coercing young mothers into choosing adoption because it is what “Jesus would want them to do.” Today. In the year of 2019.

Mothers all….it was our shame that bound us. Today it is our joined voices that will free us. We must shout from the rooftops that our basic human rights of motherhood were violated. It is our right and our responsibility to speak up and to speak loudly on behalf of today’s young mothers.

Salvation Army Booth Memorial Hospital - Wauwatosa, WI

The Torn Maternal Connection

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Reunion

“For those three impossibly short days….I spent as much time as possible in the nursery with Ryanne. … I asked her to remember that I loved her completely and that I always would. I asked this innocent baby girl if she could ever forgive me for what I believed I had to do. Mine was the voice she recognized. For months, her tiny heart had beat in rhythm with my own. The familiarity of me was her safe place. In a few days she would be taken away, and her little world would be a terrifying mixture of strange people and sounds. I hoped with all of my heart that those entrusted with her care would deliver on the promises I was making.”

As a pregnant teen in 1970, the only message delivered to me was that the responsible thing to do was to give my baby a chance at life by allowing her to be raised by a couple — a mother and a father — so that she could experience all of the financial and emotional comforts that only a two-parent family could provide. I was told she would be a gift to some childless couple — and it would be a righteous and worthy gift.

I was not told that my child would grow up with a deep, unconscious feeling of abandonment and rejection.

A quote from the book written by Nancy Newton Verrier, Primal Would: Understanding the Adopted Child “What I discovered is what I call the primal wound, ……..I began to understand this wound as having been caused by the separation of the child from his biological mother, the connection to whom seems mystical, mysterious, spiritual and everlasting.”

I feel defenseless as I reflect on the challenges that my daughter faced throughout her life, as a result of my naive choice. Although she was raised in a big, loving family to whom she has a deep connection of love and gratitude, there is no amount of love that can completely heal such a cellular wound.

Had I known, would I have made another choice?

My Daughter's Birthday

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss & Reunion

March 3, 1971 “All day, throughout the discomfort and fear, I had put my entire focus on seeing the baby. I was ready to meet my little companion of the past nine months. It was a mixed bag of emotions. Seeing her would also mean it would not be long until we were separated — possibly forever. Although i knew it was inevitable, I still wished it could be otherwise. But, this baby was ready and eager to begin her life, and it was my job to help make that happen.”

Today is my daughter’s 48th birthday. I did not know her — where she was or how she was — until she was 22 years of age and the mother of an almost four-year-old daughter. For 22 years, I silently wished her Happy Birthday, hoping my message would reach her through the channel of love that no human power can block or resist. In 1994, I was able to share my message with her, voice-to-voice, for the first time.

I called her again today, and left her a voicemail. Twenty-five years of Happy Birthday calls.

I maintain a close friendship with her adoptive mom. She sent me the following message on March 3, 2017:

“Dearest Ruby, Today is our daughter’s birthday. We have come from two different backgrounds. You, a saddened young mother who just gave birth, and me a middle-aged ‘ground greeter’ anticipating the arrival of a beautiful baby girl. Little did we know how our lives would cross and the connection we would have in our years to come. I want to shout it from the top of the mountain and tell the world how much joy and love we have together because of meeting. Thank you, Ruby, for the life you gave to us. Love, Pat (Ann)”

Less than two weeks ago, our daughter became a grandmother, and we are great-grandmothers to a lovely baby girl. No matter the circumstances, there are now four generations, stemming from the teenage union between high-school lovers. Life goes on, with all of its ups and downs and sideways turns.

I am grateful to have given you life, my daughter. I wish you well, and I wish you a Happy Birthday!

April 1971 Visit to Catholic Social Services

Soon there will be four.....

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Reunion

“Evan had celebrated her fourth birthday one day earlier. I wanted to bring her a birthday gift and decided on some Snow White trinkets after roaming Target’s toy aisle for forty-five minutes. She was clearly underwhelmed and boldly asked, ‘Why did you give me this Snow White junk?’ How could I have known, after all, that while she had a dash of enthusiasm for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast was her ‘jam,’ as she describes it today?”

I remember with clarity the feeling I had when the woman who raised my daughter told me I was already a grandmother. I was just 40 years old, and already had a soon-to-be four-year-old granddaughter! This little girl was wickedly smart and delightfully honest. From the first day we met, she regaled me with stories of her family with the vocabulary of a seasoned adult. At times it was difficult to keep a straight face while she earnestly explained in detail her most recent goings on - so serious - so engaged - and oh, so little!!

Evan is her mother’s daughter. She is beautiful, intelligent and hysterically funny. She calls me G-Ma, because the well-deserved title of Grandma was taken long before I came onto the scene.

I have known my daughter and granddaughter now for 25 years. Evan is soon-to-be 29 years old, and she is expecting her first baby - a girl! And, I am being upgraded to the title of GG-Ma.

Forty-eight years ago, I went home alone after five months in a home for unwed mothers. Sworn to silence, I grieved the loss of my child in solitude. I picked up my life to the best of my ability - got married and raised two children - but not a day went by that my daughter wasn’t in my thoughts and prayers.

Then, there was only me. Twenty-three years later, I received the gift of reunion. And then there were three - a mother, daughter and granddaughter. And, soon there will be four.

I am blessed beyond measure.

A Unique Relationship: A Mother and an Adopted Daughter

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss & Reunion

“Along with all of the excitement, love, commitment and promise, this relationship stands alone in its uniqueness. There is none other like it in my life experience. This is the beloved child I birthed but did not raise. I did not experience her first smile, first tooth, first word, or first step. I did not hold her through the night when she had a fever or a bad dream. I did not walk her to school on her first day. I didn’t bake special birthday cakes for her or craft her Halloween costumes. The past is unchangeable, and to live in regret of it is to carry its mistakes and lost opportunities forward. Once reunited, I intuitively knew that the best thing to do was to live each and every new day in joyful celebration of the miracle of my second chance with (her).”

Our relationship has ebbed, flowed and fallen on the occasional hefty rock. Currently, there is a chasm between us. With no communication or response from her for several months, I am left to my own imagination. I cannot bridge the gap that I don’t understand. So, I give her space, and I keep my heart and mind open.

I missed the first 23 years of her life, but have had the joy of knowing her for the past 25. I am grateful. I know her face, her voice and her laughter. I know the mother who raised her, and many of her seven siblings. I have been in the home she grew up in. I know her husband. And, to my great delight, I know my granddaughter, who is now pregnant with my first great-grandchild!

I have no understanding of my daughter’s life as a mixed-race, adopted child who was raised in a Caucasian family and community. I cannot relate to her deep feelings of rejection. I cannot relate to her experiences of racism. I can only love her.

And, I can hope for reconciliation.

A Pregnant Mother Considering Adoption

I took sharp notice of a recently posted blog entitled, Dear Pregnant Mother Considering Adoption, by Kristin Jones. The following excerpt stopped my breath:

There are many people who will pressure you to relinquish your child. People will tell you that you are not good enough to raise your child……Many people will tell you adoption is the brave thing to do. They will tell you if you loved your child enough you would place that child for adoption. This makes no sense to your child – your child believes if you loved them you would not give them away.

As a pregnant teen in 1970/1971, I fell into the “pressured to relinquish my child” category. There were no blogging adoptees….no blogs. No Facebook pages. No support groups. No documentaries. No Netflix movies. No flip side to consider.

There were only the blaming, shaming voices of adults convincing me that I was unfit to be a mother. “Giving your child up for adoption is the most unselfish thing you will ever do,” they said. “Two parents can give your child a happier, healthier life.”

Recently, my first-born daughter, who was raised in a lovely mid-western home, with a father and a mother and seven siblings shared this eye-opening truth with me. “Everything you read tells us that adopted children are the ‘chosen ones.’ But, I don’t feel chosen - I feel rejected.”

I hope all pregnant mothers considering adoption will talk to other (birth) mothers. I pray they will look for adult adoptees and listen carefully to what they have to say. Talk. Voice to voice and face to face. Pause and consider.

It helps little that I know to the very depths of my being, the decision I was forced to make to let my little girl go was the most painful “choice” of my life. There is no escaping the fact that my little girl grew up feeling rejected and unloved…..by me.

And that is not OK.

A Social Worker Named Art

Art worked for Catholic Social Services, the agency my parents had contacted when they learned “I had gotten myself into trouble.” I first met him at Booth Memorial Hospital, the home for unwed mothers where I lived from September 30, 1970 until shortly after my daughter was born on March 3, 1971. I don’t recall precisely how many visits Art and I had, but I remember him, and I remember his kind ways. As time passes, his face, stature and the color of his hair are replaced in my memory as physical features of Fred Rogers.

We talked about the pending adoption of my unborn child. I have no recollection of any discussions of options that might be available to an unwed mother and her child….options that would keep us together. Was it because I was a minor at the time of my pregnancy and birthing? Or, was it simply the boiler-plate approach during the “baby grab years,” post WWII, and prior to the Roe v. Wade supreme court decision in 1973?

Together, Art and I filled out medical history forms. Sadly, my knowledge on the subject was limited, and my baby went off into the world with information based on the ignorant collection of facts of a seventeen-year-old girl, almost completely devoid of the birth father’s family details.

But, Art did his job as well as he could. When I made the trip to the big-city courthouse to “relinquish my parental rights,” Art was the only adult standing beside me as I choked out a shaky, tear-filled and fear-filled “yes” when the judge asked me if I fully understood my decision.

And, when a family adopted my baby girl, three long months after the day of her birth, it was Art that called me with the details. As I sobbed into the phone, he reminded me one more time, that I had done the right thing. This was a professional family with all of the resources necessary to raise a child. This was the right thing.

More than forty-seven years later, I wish I could ask Art if that decision still feels right to him.

A Birthmother By Any Other Name

Recently, it was suggested to me that the term “birthmother (birth mother) demeans, oppresses and marginalizes. It renders the mother by others to ONLY the role of giving birth.”

My book is titled: Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Reunion. I gave serious consideration to the title. I mean no disrespect to mothers who “by Nature and by God” gave birth to children they did not raise, rather by choice or by coercion.

After working with me to shape and share my story, my writing mentor suggested that the decision to offer my child to adoption was not my choice at all. She emphatically insisted that as a 17-year-old child, I was indeed choiceless.

I have profound respect for the woman who raised my daughter; the woman my daughter refers to as “Mom.” When my daughter introduces me to friends and family, she reverently states, “This is my birth mom.” And so I am.

The distinction is important to me. When I call myself a “birthmother,” I am telling other women who have shared my experience who I am, where I have been, and what I felt. If I simply call myself a “mother,” I invite no sharing of stories which include homes for unwed mothers, adoptions, adoptees and families of origin. I open no door for expressions of anger and grief. I may never hear the tales of the joys of reunion.

It is not my intention to take anything away from any mother. Rather, it is my hope to promote conversation in this blessed adoption triangle.

Two moms and our daughter April 1994