Martin Bridgeman

My tale of birth circumstances took a few significant steps further recently and a major one on Thursday last. As you may remember I’ve been seeking out the truth of my birth. I was very lucky to make contact with my birth mother’s family when at one stage it seemed as if that part of my life was to be kept in darkness. We never met, my mother and I, but at least I have now some sense of the woman who gave birth to me. She managed the seemingly amazing feat of having two children out of wedlock in the Ireland of the 1960s and seems to have kept these two events to herself. I’m not entirely convinced on that one but it’s most likely that there are few if any people alive who knew anything or if there are they’re not saying. Some things are too painful and deep, some promises too important to break, a different less caring society taking care of the rest. 

I say it often: secrets and lies. 

It’s still strange one, this physical connection, this most basic link to another human being being sundered. It has had an effect on me I know and I can’t imagine it just passed itself by for my mother either. I’ve seen her letters and they suggest to me a woman in real crisis, caught between the norms and a perfectly normal human experience. 

After that, we’re in the world of surmise and whatabouts, maybe it was this, who knew, do you thinks and conjecture. I’ve conjured up too many scenarios over the years and yet my basic thought remain: these births were never going to be accepted by her family or the wider society back then. Things were that bad that a woman could not be allowed to be a mother without a man involved. That was the role of a woman back then, a chattel, with no thought given to what she wanted for herself or her children. The state stepped in and compassion stepped out. 

Before you think it, I’ll say it: maybe she did not want children, but her circumstances and country left only one option, that of adoption and the suppression of truth on her and us (my half sister and I). It is extremely unlikely that we’ll ever know the full truth so speculation takes over and means that I may be reacting to something that simply did not happen. That’s our lot. It’s different for every adopted person and birth mother (and father). I’ve read too many heartbreaking stories not to be affected and yet…what reaction can I have if I literally don’t know what happened. I do feel cheated of my life with her but I’ve been too lucky and too loved to dwell on it. That said, it’s there. 

The road I took led me to my mother’s family and their acceptance of me and my sister was heart warming, unexpected and a tribute to their humanity. It need not have been this way and yet it was. It is a fundamental thing to be accepted, acknowledged and brought in to a family and I cherish it. 

Having seemingly exhausted all avenues of enquiry one large part of the jigsaw remained and still does to a degree. While adoption stories, with good reason, focus on the birth mother, there is of course a birth father’s story. Mine was no different and no less opaque. Women were encouraged to put in false names, most did not recognise a father on the birth certificate and so the route to that person is littered with falsehoods, probably even more than with birth mothers. Once again the possibilities are endless and the truth somewhat less dramatic in most cases. I don’t know what happened, plain and simple. In that respect I tended to push that part of my birth to one side, especially when the many stories about the realities of official documents made me doubt everything anyway. 

Fast forward to earlier this year and a realisation because of a chance comment in my birth mother’s family. I decided to pursue this with some of the family and a name emerged, a forgotten relationship between my mother and a man. I had been given a first name and an occupation many years ago and this coupled with the comment led me to a full name and therefore some limited information. A further discussion led me to a county and then an area. I had suddenly a degree of specifics  and seeming confirmation that I had never had before. 

For a reason I will never be able to explain I let this information sit with me for some weeks, on top of a further inexplicable lack of desire to pursue these pieces of information. Then, one late night, a simple google search gave me pause for thought. I seemingly had a match based on the information I have been given. Had I the right man, was this too easy? What about an image search? I clicked and the world shifted on its axis once again. I was looking at someone who was shockingly familiar. Subsequent reactions from loved ones and close friends convinced me that I was indeed looking at my father. I still marvel at this. He looked like me but was he my father at all or was I looking for it to be true despite the facts?

I had also found out with my search that he had passed away some time ago and another dart of concern ran through me. Was this something hereditary? Anyone who’s been in this situation will recognise the chill. What else did I need to know? Search engines are fine but this is a flesh and blood story and real human feelings involved. What was his story? Would there be anyone alive to confirm anything? What does his family know, if anything? 

As I had done before I headed back to the agency and had a long discussion on this news. My case worker was as always, caring and professional but she cut to the chase. I needed to pursue this line now and she was more than prepared to help. She told me how she would probably approach things. My limited search brought me to my father’s subsequent family and some members of it. Suffice it to say that there was likely (half) brothers and sisters. 

Once again I was about to shake someone else’s family tree. If I had been on my own I would probably have left it but with the amazing support I’ve received I decided to pursue this course of action. I was also stepping in to another family life and the likelihood that they had no idea about me, or indeed their loved one. I gathered that he had married and had a family so there was another layer of complexity. 

I can only imagine what the news meant when it hit and the effect it had on my father’s family. Here was something that had pre-dated their births, uncovered and had possibly undermined their sense of the man. This is not trivial information. Denial, suspicion and refusal would have been perfectly acceptable reactions but in the exchange of letters and contact with the agency there was a genuine sense of curiosity at the very least and perhaps even acceptance. Once again, potential secrets and lies swirled and brought the further swirl of possible scenarios and reactions. Yet: there was a willingness to follow through and that brought me to the not unreasonable request for a DNA sample. 

I did shake a little when the pack arrived. It’s mainstream now of course, a regular feature of police procedural shows but when you have to take the DNA swab itself, follow the instructions, feel the dryness in the mouth and the anxiety that you’ve done everything correctly, time does stand still. There’s a realisation that while not perfect, it will confirm once and for all if there is a family link. 

I posted it off, got an email back to say that the other sample had also been sent off. 

I waited. I was secure in the knowledge that I’d done the right thing, that this was a step along the road to confirmation but I don’t mind saying that it was an anxious week. I had been patient, to the extreme, but the momentum felt right. 

Had the call the other day. The result was that there was a 97.25% that the person in the test was a sibling. Time stood still again. The family had been told at this stage so we’ve agreed through the agency that we’ll leave things sit till January. The tree has been shaken…

I must admit I did think about the 2.75%