Martin Bridgeman

It was waiting on me the other morning. That the file arrived was not unexpected. I had finally asked for it at a recent meeting with my social worker. We’ve started on the road to contact my birth father’s family so I took the opportunity to ask. In what I’ve noticed is a recurring pattern, I simply hadn’t asked for it before. It was as easy as asking. The wheels rolled, the papers copied, posted and popped in to my letterbox. I had been given some letters before but they seem incomplete; responses from my mother to letters from the agency at the time so I asked. And received. And swallowed hard. 

I’d spent a night in A&E (I’m fine, thanks) and had, because I had nothing else to do, spent a good while taking stock. You run things through in your head, I find, over and over, what ifs and what abouts clashing in a dance of uncertainties and actual fears, real and imagined. I’ve found this to be a sort of elliptical orbit: something kicks it off, a phone call or a conversation, someone asks about your adoption story, its a family milestone, a medical emergency for example. In my case, I had to give a full medical history and once again I had to say that I could not. Prior to this package arriving, at that time I gave the same answer: I’m adopted, have no idea about hereditary things, all I can tell you is what I know for myself. So, sitting in the cubicle, hooked up and mostly calm, I thought about this whole thing again.

And then, in short time, once the immediate has taken its course, it spins off again. Many adopted people seem to experience this from conversations I’ve had.

Incidentally, I mentioned ‘thwarted love’ before in relation to my birth father. I think its more accurate to call it ‘complex  emotions’. It’s basic stuff here, things that many take for granted, but facts, dates, times that adoptive people find difficult or impossible to find and then to process. As I also said before: it’s complicated. 

I was right to make the decision to search and was committed to it but seeing the pile of papers did make me hesitate, but the impetus to see thing through was strong and sincere and I‘d also had another little moment of mortality, the hypothetical bus crashing in to me and all the possible regrets. Another impetus is that the adoption agency itself is also due to close once the legislation changes on adoption so that was another impetus to making a decision. Once that happens, as I understand it, all files will revert to the state and so the good and the bad will all merge in to what will probably turn in to another mess. I was a public servant for 34 years and I hate to sound unfair or unkind, but one thing I know: political decisions around public services always tend to follow a pattern; make a wise decision, show some humanity and then starve the appropriate agencies of the funding needed to follow through. Public servants are then in the firing line and the government of the day is free to sleep walk in to another scandal. Cynical? Me? 

We’d had a very good meeting, though. My social worker is still doing great work with her colleagues and it was truly a joy to meet her again after all these years. She has that great combination of professionalism, humanity and care and has been nothing but helpful all though my various journeys. She and her colleagues work under the aforementioned limitations but do great work in what is truly a minefield at the best of times. People’s experiences vary, I get that. I’be had my share of good fortune and dead ends too.

We chatted and caught up, remembering our first meeting in 1997. Back then she had subsequently shared some information about me (that I mentioned before); small but important things, principal among them being that my name had not changed. Thinking about it afterwards, Mick and Maisie had the right to change my name as my adoptive parents but chose not to and so that one piece of information proved crucial later in my life when I sought out my birth certificate. I had a baptismal certificate which showed my place of baptism. I therefore had a name, a date, a place and a county; more than enough to identify me. I made contact with a former colleague who then worked in the administration of the county I was born in, and armed with this information, minutes later a fax came through with a copy of my formal birth certificate. Sharp intake of breath and I was off on my journey.

At that time what I did was not illegal in one sense. These details are public records and anyone can seek them. What was and remains weird is that if I if had asked for my birth cert myself in a formal way I would not have received a full certificate. I was given a short form certificate which showed my place of birth as a place called Dublin NC4. I know, I tried. Back then and now, they ask you if this person was the subject of an adoption order and so they did not give out the ‘correct’ birth information. Anyway, that has not changed and in many cases it’s almost impossible to do this type of search mainly because many people had their birth names changed. We know now that there were cases where their actual birth certificates were  – illegally – recorded in the first place which will and has resulted in awful consequences.)

At the end of the meeting I had pretty much decided to go through with the search for my father but took a little time to talk things out with my wife. It was not a long conversation. I rang back to confirm things and so we’ve started off again. 

What landed in my postbox was every piece of correspondence that the agency had on me; my medical report, letters to and from my mother, letters to adoptive parents and the formal relinquishment of my from my mother to my adoptive parents. The one that hit me most forcibly was seeing my name on a medical report, that is my ‘real name’. It had all the information that you’d expect to ask or get from a new parent; birth weight, dates, times. A later letter confirmed that I was a thriving child, putting on the right amount of weight, information on vaccinations I’d received, a little about my personality. This information was sent to my adoptive parents.

The letters to and from my mother were different in tone. 

Here was a woman who had a second child shortly after her first, not an unusual occurrence at all as I’ve subsequently discovered. Many studies and analysis bear this out. Marriages shortly after handing up children are not uncommon either. It all proves – to me – that this sundering of the most basic of bonds has deep psychological effects on women and that logic and the opinions of others have no place in this area. Wounds that deep do not heal easily or at all. 

Her letters show a woman in deep distress, asking, if not pleading for the agency to help her adopt her baby so she can continue to keep this secret. She was in England at the time and had siblings due to move in with her and so time was of the essence. Letters to and from show this clearly and the judgement from her case worker at the time is barely concealed. She had ‘fallen’ again and was down the list of priorities. She was told she could look elsewhere if she was not happy, like that was an option open to her. 

A subsequent letter tells her to get me ready and take a bus to Dublin on the appointed date and get a taxi up to the agency. It seems as if she didn’t warrant a car. (Maybe if I was being adopted to a nice American couple I’d have gotten a car and a stewardess to bring me to the USA). She was to leave me there, hand me over, walk away and put it behind her. Later that afternoon (but I’m not sure) Mick and Maisie collected me and my life took its course. Was she still in the building when they took me from her?

My mother’s fate was to return to the mother and baby home and make arrangements to leave. Subsequent letters mention a ‘contribution’. Later letters show her making efforts to pay this. She was not able to do this easily at that time. I have yet to discover the exact amount but it was substantial enough to cause her anxiety. 

Yes, we’ll judge you, treat you like something less than human, make you give away your second baby, turf you out and you have to pay us. 

I know. Me too.

The letters stop about the time of the adoption order and I can only assume that she paid her contribution. Nothing else appears on the file until I go to the agency in 1995 and meet the social worker who was there at the time. Coincidentally she last met me on the day I was exchanged and she had held me in her arms. Another journey began. 

More to come