mother
Bessborough survivor: ‘The shame belongs with them’
Bessborough survivor: ‘The shame belongs with them’
Sun, 30 May, 2021 – 06:35
Maresa Fagan
Survivors of mother and baby homes and other State institutions have been let down and only an international investigation can shed light on the “human rights violations” of the past, according to Bessborough survivor Terri Harrison. The 66-year-old Dublin campaigner is one of 13 women from Ireland and the North who have requested that the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigate the ‘violent legacy’ of mother and baby homes, Bessborough survivor: ‘The shame belongs with them’e laundries, and industrial schools. The recent ICC request made by Belfast-based legal firm KRW Law is seeking a preliminary examination into whether the institutional abuse exposed in recent reports and inquiries amounted to “crimes against humanity”. Earlier this year, the Mother and Baby Home Commission of Investigation found that around 56,000 unmarried mothers and 57,000 children passed through 18 State-funded and church-run institutions examined and that around 9,000 babies and children died. The legacy of the institutions, which operated for more than seven decades, has left deep scars across society, from the mothers whose babies were taken away to the children who were adopted or who died and were buried in pits. The commission findings were met with widespread criticism from survivors and have led to several legal challenges against the State. For Terri, the final report was a “whitewash” as it failed to acknowledge or atone for the abduction and forced disappearances of thousands of young girls and women pregnant out of wedlock, their “stolen” babies, or for the children who died. “There wasn’t a whisper of humanity in the report,” Terri says, adding that it failed to address the issue of neglect and starvation or the 922 unaccounted for babies in the Bessborough facility in Cork.
‘Pregnant from Ireland’
Terri is one of more than 2,500 PFIs Irish women or girls who were officially recorded as ‘pregnant from Ireland’ and brought back from the UK to a mother and baby home. It was 1973 when the Crusade and Rescue Society, an English-based Catholic charity, “abducted” the expectant 18-year-old from London and a nun and priest escorted her by car to the airport and onwards to the Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork. It was a day forever etched in Terri’s mind. “I will never forget the door and the click of the door when it closed. I was just left there in the hallway. I have never felt as alone in my life as I did in that moment,” she says.
“When I stood in that hallway I lost me. I was given a house number and house name and was shown to a bed and locker. I just sat there and cried and cried and said to myself ‘this is the bowels of hell’.”
While Terri managed to escape from Bessborough and return to Dublin, she was tracked down and sent to St Patrick’s mother and baby home on the Navan Rd, where she gave birth to a baby boy, Niall, who was later “taken” for adoption. There was a cry, a primal scream, that you would hear regularly when a mother discovered that their baby was gone. “It was wrenching, like a cry from an animal,” she says.
Forty-eight years on, the pain and sense of loss remains, but Terri continues to hold out hope that she may someday reconnect with Niall, who she describes as her “shadow child”. “No matter where we were or what we were doing I always pictured him at the age he should be. I visualised him everywhere and at Christmas time there was always a present under the tree for him,” she says.
Terri is only too aware that her experience is not unique and last year got involved in setting up a support group, Society of Survivors, to enable women to share their experiences.
Carrying the secrets
Some women, she says, still carry the loss, silence, shame, and secrets today: “I know women in their eighties to this day who have not told anyone, including their husbands or families.”
Survivors, she explains, have endured ‘living bereavement’ even though there was no loss of life. “No death occurred but each stage of your life presents a new bereavement that amplifies all those years of loss. The loss of freedom and liberty, the loss of motherhood, the loss of the right to breastfeed your own child, it just goes on and on and it never stops until you die.”
Women and girls, some as young as 12, were “dehumanised” in the institutions, which could not be called a home, Terri says: “We weren’t residents. We were interned. We were incarcerated. We were recorded by our offence. I was down as my first offence. The only difference is we didn’t get a court of law or a trial to find us guilty of anything.”
An independent international investigation, she believes, is the only way to uncover the true scale of the “human rights violations” and “inhumane” treatment that occurred. “There is a huge correlation between us and those who were incarcerated in war camps. You were 100% at the mercy of your captives. You could do nothing without their approval,” she says.
Any attempts to attribute what happened to the social norms of the time was a “cop-out”, Terri says, adding that it amounted to human trafficking, involving several sectors of the State and society, and that women and young girls were denied access to information and their rights, such as the right to see their child under the 1952 Adoption Act. “Who gave anybody the right to lock me away and take my child? Nobody will answer that,” she says.
The long-time campaigner, who has penned a play, No More Secrets, No More Lies, based on her own experiences, says the Government needs to acknowledge what happened and support survivors. An enhanced medical card, she says, does not compare to the Health Amendment Act (HAA) card provided to victims of the contaminated blood products scandal, which is what survivors are looking for as a “gesture of kindness”. Any shame around these institutions today, Terri adds, lies firmly with the State and Government, and not survivors. “We are just a pain in their side or a toothache they want to get rid of. They don’t know what to do with us because we’re an embarrassment; we’re bringing embarrassment to the whole culture of this country,” Terri says.
“But I’ll keep saying this until I die; I like the word shame now because I know exactly where it belongs; the shame belongs with them.”
Society of Survivors support line: 085 8069925/26
‘I knew there was something missing from my life’: The incredible story of three siblings who met for the first time in their sixties after being given away for adoption to three different families
‘I knew there was something missing from my life’: The incredible story of three siblings who met for the first time in their sixties after being given away for adoption to three different families
Episode six of Long Lost Family airs on ITV1 and ITVX tonight at 9pm
By Emma Pryer
Published: 16:55, 25 August 2024 | Updated: 08:44, 26 August 2024
When Mary Arbuthnot opened a letter from her dying father, Richard, more than 20 years ago, she had no idea it would change the course of her life. The sealed, brown envelope with ‘Mary’ on the front contained some paperwork and a note, reading: ‘Alright Queen. If you want to find out any info, here are the numbers. Love always, Mum and Dad.’
One of the phone numbers her father had provided was for a Liverpool adoption agency a call to them began what turned out to be a long quest to find her birth family. The agency’s records revealed that Mary’s birth mother was an unmarried Irish woman called Rita O’Reilly, who had been living in London but for some reason travelled to Liverpool for Mary’s birth in 1965 and that Rita had also given birth to two other children, a girl born in 1960 and a boy born in 1962. Mary, from West Derby, a suburb of Liverpool, was stunned. ‘I’d known since I was seven that I was adopted as a ten week-old baby, but I’d had such a great childhood with my brother, who was also adopted, that I never thought any more of it.’
So happy was she, that she had often yearned for other siblings. Now she was left overwhelmed by the news she actually had two she’d never met. Named Bridget and George, they were born in London. And, like her, they had been adopted, each to a different family. Unusually, they shared the same father, an Irishman called Jim Melody. ‘I was so shocked. It was a strange feeling because I’ve had a happy life, but there was always this thing that something was missing,’ says Mary, 58.
Meeting her brother and sister, she felt, would make her life complete. That same year, 2002, she spoke to a counsellor at the Nugent Adoption agency, who was able to give her some more information about her birth parents and siblings. It threw up a mix of emotions. Mary had always imagined her birth mother as a vulnerable teenager, forced by poverty or family disapproval to give up her baby. ‘Back in the Sixties, it would have been hard under those circumstances,’ says Mary, 58.
Instead, she discovered that her mother was 34 when she had given birth to her and had already given two babies away. ‘That didn’t sit well with me. I’m not angry at all, I just can’t fathom how any woman can give a whole family away. She was offered help by the Church but still chose to give us away.’
For the first time, Mary began to have doubts about trying to find her brother and sister: would they even want to be found?
‘Did they know about me and, if so, why hadn’t they come searching?’ she says. ‘Part of me thought that if I started looking and they didn’t want to be involved, I’d be sorry.’
For the time being, Mary busy with her career as a hairdresser and her role as a mother to Stephanie, now 38, and Richard, now 30 put the search out of her mind. Then, three years later, her father died. That loss seemed to trigger an even more powerful longing for the siblings she had never met. She found herself glued to the heartbreaking stories of adoption and reunion on ITV’s Long Lost Family, the programme that reunites relatives separated by adoption. In 2022, after yet another tear-jerking episode and a full 20 years since her father had given her the letter Mary finally decided to take a chance. She filled out an application to the show and then, as life got busy, almost forgot about it. Five months later, she received an unexpected phone call. ‘It was one of the Long Lost Family team who wanted to ask some more questions. I nearly dropped the phone!’ she says.
Because she had her siblings’ dates of birth, the team was able to make a quick breakthrough. They found her brother George and sister Bridget who was now called Andrea. Not only were they both alive and well, but were living just 40 miles apart from one another, 240 miles south of Mary. In an upcoming episode of the series, co-host Davina McCall breaks the news to Mary at her home in Liverpool. ‘It was just unbelievable,’ Mary recalls. ‘It was a life-changing moment, that’s the only way I can explain it. I started shaking because even though I’d known about them, it was another thing to actually be told “we’ve found them”.’
George and Andrea, meanwhile, were dealing with their own sense of shock after each receiving a letter from Long Lost Family explaining they had a sister who was trying to trace them. Andrea Tovey, 64, a former civil servant from Gillingham in Kent, initially thought the letter was a scam. ‘I was a bit suspicious. It was just such a shock to get a letter saying my sister was wanting to find me when I never knew I had one,’ the mum of two admits.
It was even more of an ‘unbelievable, wonderful shock’ to be told that she also had a brother. Today, as the three of them speak, there is an undeniable ease and warmth between them. They fall into a casual, comfortable patter as if they’ve known each other for decades, not months. With similar laid-back demeanours and endearingly gentle laughs, only Mary’s soft Liverpudlian accent gives away the fact the trio didn’t grow up together.nnAs Mary jokingly cuts across from George as he proudly claims responsibility for the reunion he had been looking for his two sisters for more than four years and was just days away from finding them himself before Long Lost Family got in touch you can see they have already developed that unmistakable knack for jovial sibling bickering. They chuckle about the obvious physical similarities: ‘We are all very pale,’ laughs Mary, ‘and if you look at the shape of our eyes and mouths I think it’s the same’.
Unlike Mary, both George and Andrea were raised as only children. Born in Highgate, London, and raised in Gillingham, Andrea had always known she was adopted. Like Mary, she had a blissfully happy childhood, brought up principally by her father, Leonard, after her adoptive mother Betty died of cancer when she was just six. Andrea had pulled her birth records as a young adult, but as she was the first child to be born to Rita O’Reilly, there was no mention of a younger brother or sister. Life was busy and fulfilling and she decided not to chase after her parents in case they weren’t interested in meeting. Born in Hackney and raised in Loughton, Essex, George Buttwell, 62, had also known he was adopted as long as he could remember. Like his sisters, he had a happy childhood, leaving him with little urgency to uncover his past. In 1998, his wife, Lesley, saw a programme about accessing adoption records, which piqued steel fixer George’s interest. He applied for his adoption paperwork and original birth certificate, which provided brief details about his birth parents. But it was really only years later in 2019 that his search got going. George’s youngest daughter, Lindsey, 34, bought him a DNA test as a gift. The results opened a new chapter, throwing up relatives he never knew he had in Ireland and London. He began to discover more about his past than he had ever imagined. George’s DNA test linked him to a second cousin in Ireland and through him and another member of his extended family, he heard he had two sisters for the first time. ‘Knowing that, I became determined to find them,’ says the father of three.
He then decided to explore a hunch that his sisters might have been born at the same Catholic nursing home in London as him. St Margaret’s no longer existed, but he was told he might be able to find out more about his sisters through the Catholic Children’s Society in Westminster. Its records contained the full names and dates of birth for his sisters. His local council adoption service agreed to contact his sisters on his behalf and was just doing some final legal checks when the letter arrived from Long Lost Family. ‘I’d been looking for four years by that stage. I told [the adoption service] to call off the search. It was amazing news but perhaps not as much of a surprise as it was to Andrea, who didn’t know about either of us.’
Last November, the three siblings finally came face-to-face in a Liverpool hotel in emotional scenes which will be broadcast tonight. As Davina explains as they wait to meet: ‘It is very rare for Long Lost Family to find and bring together three full siblings all of whom until today have been complete strangers to one another.’
Andrea was first in the room; her heart in her mouth. ‘It actually felt like quite a while before they came in and I started getting emotional before,’ she recalls. ‘It was something I’d never believed could happen after all this time but it was so nice. We held hands as we talked and we just seemed to get on straight away.’
George agrees. ‘It did feel like we were all family. You could feel that straight away that we’ve got this thing in common, no matter how far we’ve drifted.’
Now, though, the sibling bond appears to be growing stronger with every passing month. They have an official family WhatsApp Group called O’Reilly Melody after the surnames of their birth parents. In January, less than two months after the show, they came together again at George’s Essex home, where a picture of the three of them now takes pride of place in the living room. A second reunion followed in June, with a pub lunch in London and another trip to George’s house to share notes on their histories and meet extended family. Just this week, George’s daughter Sarah, 38, flew in from Spain and Andrea was there to meet her. Small things mean a lot: for Mary, it’s been a thrill to send birthday and Christmas cards to her brother and sister for the very first time. The growing bond feels so natural that Mary has even taken to cutting Andrea’s hair. ‘Every time I’ve seen her she’s blow-dried my hair and last time she actually cut it. I’ve never looked so glamorous,’ smiles Andrea.
But for all the joy of getting to know one another (Andrea even jokes she shares the same love for the TV detective, Columbo, as George) there is sadness for the missed years they could have had together. ‘I know that my parents would have adopted the other two if they’d have known and we could have all been together, as we should have been,’ says Mary.
The siblings have discovered that Jim Melody passed away around 20 years ago and Rita O’Reilly around ten years later. As they were unmarried, Jim was buried in Ireland and Rita in Finchley, North London. From what they have gathered from relatives, the siblings understand that Rita and Jim lived together on and off for 40 years, but the real nature of their relationship remains a mystery: the pair have taken to the grave many unanswered questions for Mary, Andrea and George. ‘For the time they were living in, for their background, it would have made a lot of sense to get married, so why didn’t they?, George, who has visited his mother’s grave, has often wondered. Why did their mother have them adopted, and to different families?
And why, when Rita and Jim appeared to travel from Dublin to London together, did Rita keep leaving their London address and flitting to different areas?
For now at least, the unresolved questions are overshadowed by the joy of finding one another. ‘I’ve got ideas of what I’d like to do if I get to the point of retiring, but this has given me this extra positive feeling. It’s this happy unknown future now and there’s already this genuine love there with us,’ says Andrea.
‘It’s a feeling you can’t really describe because it’s something I’ve never experienced before,’ says Mary. ‘It was like I’d already known them forever.’
Episode six of Long Lost Family airs on ITV1 and ITVX on August 25th, at 9pm
Mother and baby home survivors’ stories published: ‘I was told I was going’
Mother and baby home survivors’ stories published: ‘I was told I was going’
27 September 2022
“I became pregnant and when my mother found out I was taken immediately to a doctor and within a very short period of time I found myself in a Good Shepherd mother-and-baby home.”
This is part of one woman’s personal testimony about her experience of mother-and-baby homes in Northern Ireland. Her account has been published along with a number of others, running to hundreds of pages and made available on the Quote oral history website run by Queen’s University Belfast, external (QUB).
Those who experienced life in workhouses and Magdalene laundries have told their stories and the transcripts also include evidence from children born in the homes. The testimonies have been anonymised but have been published with the full permission of those who gave them. One woman, referred to as LC, was sent to a Good Shepherd mother-and-baby home when she became pregnant, aged 17. “I was just told I was going and that was it,” she added.
“I was put in a car with the local parish priest and my mother and off I went.”
LC’s baby was adopted against her wishes but later in life she was able to reunite with her adopted child. A mother referred to as HS also entered a Good Shepherd home when she was pregnant, aged 19. She said that she was made to feel “isolated and sinful” there. DH, meanwhile, was born in a mother-and-baby home and then adopted. The impact that it’s had on me as a person has been significant,” he said.
DH had begun a process on reuniting with his birth mother when he was in his 30s.
Stigma of pregnancy outside marriage
Mother-and-baby institutions housed women and girls who became pregnant outside marriage. There was stigma attached to pregnancy outside of marriage and women and girls were admitted by families, doctors, priests and state agencies. The laundries were Catholic-run workhouses that operated across the island of Ireland. About a third of women admitted to the homes were aged under 19 and most were aged from 20 to 29. The youngest was 12 and the oldest 44. A number were the victims of sexual crime, including rape and incest. Numbers of entrants peaked in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before a rapid reduction in the 1980s. The oral evidence had informed a major Stormont report into mother-and-baby homes and Magdalene laundries in Northern Ireland, which was published in January 2021. It found that 10,500 women went through mother-and-baby homes in Northern Ireland and 3,000 were admitted into Magdalene laundries. The report detailed often harsh conditions and abuse suffered by some of those admitted to eight mother-and-baby homes, a number of former workhouses and four Magdalene laundries in Northern Ireland. Some women said they had been detained against their will, were used as unpaid labour and had to give up babies for adoption. The experts from QUB and Ulster University who carried out the research for the 2021 report had said they intended to make some of the transcripts of evidence “available for consultation by members of the public”. That has now been done with full transcripts of testimonies from 24 individuals about their experiences.
‘Traumatic and upsetting’
Thirteen of the testimonies are from “birth mothers” women who gave birth while living in the institutions. Five are testimonies from the children of birth mothers, one from another relative and five from “other observers” of the institutions. The “other observers” include an elderly retired priest, a woman whose father worked in a Good Shepherd convent, a retired midwife, a woman who had lived in one of the Sacred Heart homes and a woman who knew a number of residents of one of the homes. Details have been removed from the transcripts that would identify any of those who agreed that their experiences could be published. An introduction to the transcripts said that a “range of contrasting and complex testimonies” had been collected. “They ranged from testimonies that were highly critical of the mother and baby institutions and Magdalene laundries through to very different narratives from individuals who worked within them,” it said.
“Readers will no doubt be aware that the testimony they will encounter is often traumatic and upsetting. The transcripts reveal many birth mothers were pressured to give up a child for adoption. Several relate testimony about various forms of mistreatment. The latter included a range of details, spanning regimental institutional regimes that imposed cleaning chores on heavily pregnant women through to, in a very small number of cases, more serious allegations of sexual abuse.”
The interviews were carried out by Prof Sean O’Connell of QUB and Dr Olivia Dee. Prof O’Connell told BBC News NI that he wanted to pay tribute to the courage of all of those who had been involved in the process and came forward to give oral evidence. Following the publication of the research report in January 2021, a Truth Recovery Design Panel which had been established by the Stormont Executive subsequently recommended that a public inquiry be held into the institutions in Northern Ireland. The PSNI has also launched an investigation into allegations of physical and sexual abuse in the institutions.
-
Listen here to BBC News NI’s podcast ‘Assume Nothing: The Last Request’ about a man who was born in a mother-and-baby home and his last wish to track down his birth mother
Reflecting
I had very good intentions of getting my story written here but life has a habit of getting in the way. Different projects/hobbies have started up again such as writing knitting and having pets who are life savers.
My first 18 years on this planet were very average and I was very good girl not getting into trouble apart from the usual of maybe getting home late, fighting with my sister and so on. This changed after getting into a relationship then splitting up around my 19th birthday. It devastated me at the time as the lad believed a lie told by his cousin and refused to listen to the truth.
Eventually I knew I was pregnant but didn’t tell the father as I was angry and hurting. I kept quiet long enough not to be pressured into having an abortion although certain people who can’t defend themselves now would have disputed that. My mother was furious, my father didn’t say much, and she was determined my baby would be adopted. I refused to agree to that and wouldn’t discuss it. My baby needed me not strangers, I already loved my unborn baby.
I still have moments when memories creep up on me suddenly that I force myself not to cry over. My mother was so cruel yet I couldn’t talk to anybody as I didn’t think they would believe me. Fear of my mother finding out scared me too much to talk to anybody as she would make me suffer emotionally and verbally behind closed doors. I loved her but we just seemed to bring out the worst of each other yet in public it was the opposite. It’s sad as we did have so much in common such as reading the same types of book, knitting, music, films, television and so on. I lived for the happy times when we were all happy.
What did you give us? Fears over drug given to young Scots mothers forced into adoption
https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/forced-adoption-drug/
What did you give us? Fears over drug given to young Scots mothers forced into adoption
By Marion Scott
July 25, 2021, 2:05 pm
Unmarried mothers who were forced to give up their babies were given a controversial drug now linked to cancers and life-changing conditions passed on to future generations. A synthetic hormone, developed to mimic oestrogen, was given to young mothers to dry up their breast milk after their babies were taken for adoption, leaving them at increased risk of developing rare cancers of the reproductive system. Even now, few know the powerful drug Diethylstilbestrol (DES) has been linked to a number of breast and vaginal cancers. And it has been shown to cause gynaecological abnormalities and infertility in the children and grandchildren of women given the pills. A major US study found that the daughters of women who took the drug were 40 times more at risk of the rare vaginal cancer adenocarcinoma, eight times more likely to suffer neonatal death, and almost five times more likely to have a premature baby. The study also highlighted increased risks with early menopause, infertility and ectopic pregnancies. The sons of mothers who had taken the drug, which was marketed under the names Stilbestrol, Stilboestrol and Desplex, were also at increased risk of infertility and testicular cancer. The drug, often referred to as just DES, was widely used and marketed throughout the world for a variety of uses, including preventing miscarriage, until 1971 when a Boston scientist first confirmed the deadly links after finding a cluster of young women developing rare vaginal cancers. The drug was sold by a number of manufacturers who have since settled US litigation cases for billions of dollars but little or nothing has been done to highlight concerns across the UK.
Calls for inquiry
Forced adoption campaigners are now demanding a public inquiry and investigation into the health of women given the drug as well as their children exposed to its wide-ranging effects while still in the womb. Marion McMillan, 73, from Paisley, who was forced to give up her baby boy in 1966 simply because she was unmarried, said she was ordered to take 16 tablets a day for almost a week after she gave birth in a mother and baby home. Now dying with cancer, she said: “I’ve met many forced adoption victims over the years who were all given the same drug to dry up their breast milk as quickly as possible after they’d given birth. It was seen as an inconvenience once we’d given birth so we were told to take the tablets, which were handed out like sweets. I was given four, four times a day until my breast milk dried up and I was sent home. Looking back, I fear I was given an overdose of very powerful hormones. Nobody ever explained what they were or whether there were any side effects. I was just ordered to take them, and as a very vulnerable, frightened teenager on my own and disowned by my horrified parents, I had nobody to ask and nobody to protect my best interests. Like the thousands of other forced adoption victims, I simply did what I was told.”
McMillan claims like many other victims she was denied painkillers, there was no stitching after the traumatic birth of her son, and she says she has been plagued by gynaecological problems ever since. More than two years ago she was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, which has spread from her lungs to her liver. She has so far defied the terminal diagnosis she was given following aggressive chemotherapy. It took 40 years before she was eventually reunited with the son taken from her, unaware that as she searched for him, he was looking for her. She met husband George after returning from the mother and baby home, and the couple went on to have a family together. The campaigner, whose heartbreaking story brought tears to politicians in the Scottish Parliament last month, has spent decades terrified that the drugs given to her had affected any of her three children. She said: “I was horrified to learn those drugs can cause increased risks of cancer and a number of other serious health issues in the children I had after my firstborn, and I’ve agonised over that and warned them to be vigilant. But it terrifies me that so little has been made public about this medical scandal, and I fear most of the women given this drug will have no inkling of the consequences. I was diagnosed with terminal cancer just over two years ago and I’d like to know whether the drugs I was given played any part in what’s happened to me, and the very least all those other mums and their children deserve is to know the truth about the risks they were exposed to and a check done to see how their health is.”
McMillan, who is due to meet Children’s Minister Clare Haughey along with other campaigners, is calling for a public inquiry so all the health risks and human rights abuses they suffered can no longer be “swept under the carpet”. She said: “For almost 60 years the 60,000 women who were forced adoption victims have been treated as if we are Scotland’s dirty little secret when our only ‘crime’ was that we were not married when we became pregnant. But this is no longer just about challenging the morality of society at that time. There are extremely serious health implications that must be addressed for the women who were given this drug and the generations of their children who may be suffering the lasting effects. The health time bomb is ticking and the government cannot continue ignoring what was a truly dreadful part of Scotland’s history. Very few women given those drugs will even know the danger we were exposed to, or the effect on our children and grandchildren.”
Civil law expert George Clark of Quantum Claims said the government had a duty to investigate: “The government must find a way to fully assess just how widely these drugs were administered, and health authorities must be able to follow-up with health checks. Everyone affected must be given the full information available on all the known side effects so they can be vigilant and seek treatment if necessary.”
MSP Monica Lennon, who has led Holyrood’s Cross Party Committee on Women’s Health said: “It’s bad enough that SNP ministers have tried to sweep the mental health impact of forced adoption under the carpet. The physical impacts must be brought into the light too, including the potential link between cancer and drugs women were made to take to stop their breast milk. A formal apology from the Scottish Government would finally acknowledge all of the damage inflicted on the mothers and their babies, and unlock a full investigation into these cruel and sinister practices.”
The drug
DES was developed by British biochemist Edward Charles Dodds in 1938. Dodds never intended it to be used as a drug and didn’t patent it, allowing more than 200 drug companies around the world to manufacture DES. Increasingly concerned over the many uses DES was being prescribed for, Dodds spoke out fiercely about the use of synthetic hormones due to the unknown effect they can have on the body and future generations. Diethylstilbestrol, known as Stilbestrol in the UK, was initially thought to prevent miscarriage and help with period pain. It was also used for a number of other issues, including preventing women growing too tall. It was even used as chemical castration, administered to Enigma hero Alan Turing to “treat” his homosexuality as an alternative to prison. The side effects were awful and Turing would later take his own life. In 1970, a Boston doctor identified links between the drug and rare vaginal cancers in young women and after a Food & Drug Administration alert, it was gradually withdrawn except for small doses used to treat prostate cancer in men. Despite huge settlements in the US to victims, very little is publicly available in the UK. Australia’s forced adoption victims asked their government to act during the country’s official apology in 2013, but are still waiting.
The film
Hollywood writer Caitlin McCarthy is about to cast her film Wonder Drug which will tell the story of how DES was given to millions of unsuspecting women with devastating consequences for generations of children.
McCarthy, 50, said: “I only discovered when I was 35 that I was a victim of this drug. It was given to my mother before I was born and of course she, like so many other women around the world, had no idea she’d been given it or what the consequences would be. I’m what is known as a DES Daughter, although the effect of the drug continues down through generations, too. I have structural differences in my cervix, and need regular check-ups as I’m at increased risk of breast and vaginal cancers. I was extremely lucky to be diagnosed when I was, during a routine operation, simply because the doctor I had was experienced in recognising the effects of the drug. It was devastating, not just for me but also for my poor mother Ann who immediately felt terribly guilty even though she had no idea she had even been given DES in a prenatal vitamin treatment. After the shock of what I’d been exposed to subsided, I began researching how this happened and discovered DES was given to millions around the world. My film exposes the fortunes made by the drug companies, and those who turned a blind eye and did little to warn victims even when the cancer links became clear in 1971. For over 40 years this scandal has been shrouded in silence even though so many people and at least three generations are affected. Everybody has heard about Thalidomide. But hardly anyone has heard about DES. I aim to change that.”
McCarthy is calling on governments around the world to alert women who were given the drug and for health checks for them and any children they have since had.
She said: “It’s desperately sad DES was given to victims of forced adoption who not only suffered by losing their babies, but their health and the health of their other children has been put at dreadful risk because of this drug. It’s a tragedy that this happened at all. But the resounding silence that surrounds it is one of the biggest medical scandals of all time. The silence cannot be allowed to continue. People deserve the truth. They need help and support. Governments cannot continue ignoring this issue. It saddens me and angers me that in all these years there has been no proper apology from either the drug companies or the watchdogs who were supposed to prevent any of this happening. When the first links with cancer were first identified in 1971, the Food & Drug Administration could have issued a ban and taken action so the rest of the world would sit up and react. Instead all it did was issue an alert and little notice was taken. That was shameful. In 2011, the FDA finally admitted DES was a ‘tragedy’. But they still did not apologise.”
Oscar-nominated director Matia Karrell aims to premiere Wonder Drug next year. McCarthy said: “I hope the film will get people talking. The silence has already damaged millions of lives. It has to end.”
Ministers urged to apologise to victims
Clare Haughey
Marion McMillan will urge the Scottish Government to give a formal apology to the victims of Scotland’s forced adoption scandal when she meets a minister this week. She will see Clare Haughey on Thursday when she will ask the minister for children and young people to encourage the Scottish Government to apologise. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she felt “deep sadness” over the issue and would consider an apology after Labour MSP Neil Bibby raised the cases of Marion and 60,000 other Scottish mothers. Meanwhile, MP Lisa Cameron, who sits on Westminster’s all-party Health Committee, said the revelations about the drugs given to victims were deeply concerning: “This is yet another disturbing, hidden aspect to the forced adoption scandal. I’m raising questions in the House of Commons and have written to the Scottish health secretary.”
The Scottish Government said: “We have enormous sympathy for the women and families who have been harmed by Stilbestrol.”
It will “highlight this issue” with UK drug watchdog the Medicines Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, which said in 1973 the Committee on Safety of Medicines wrote to doctors to advise against using the drug to treat pregnant women. In 2002, the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology reported 14 cases of cancer linked to the drug. It said: “Women who believe they may have been exposed to DES in utero and are concerned about the risks of vaginal and cervical cancer should be offered careful monitoring by annual colposcopic examinations.”
Nanny still looking after couple’s surrogate baby 10 months after birth
Nanny still looking after couple’s surrogate baby 10 months after birth
Kristie Baysinger, a nanny from Texas, took to TikTok to share the heartbreaking story of 10-month-old surrogate baby Alexander in a video that has been viewed almost one million times
By Paige Holland Showbiz Audience Writer
17:14, 17 JUN 2021Updated17:18, 17 JUN 2021
A nanny who was hired to look after a couple’s baby has revealed how she ended up raising him for the first 10 months of his life. Kristie Baysinger, a nanny from Texas, collected baby Alexander from his surrogate in Oklahoma after his parents were unable to fly from the UK to pick him up due to coronavirus restrictions. But little did she know she’d still be caring for him almost a year down the line. She shared the heartbreaking story of how rewarding, yet challenging it has been in a TikTok video that has racked up almost one million views. In the clip, she explained: “My agency called me and said: ‘Hey, can you come pick up this new surrogate baby from this surrogate who does not want to take him home?’ So, we went to Oklahoma to pick him up.”
However, the process of getting a social security number has been “a struggle,” she admitted. We’ve been getting no feedback. We’ve called social security administration and they say we’re in the loop just like everybody else is. We’re just doing our best over here and just raising this little boy and just being as sweet as we can until he can return home to his parents.”
She went on to say how they’re waiting to see whether his parents can get their passports sorted so they can come and pick him up, if not she’ll be travelling to Scotland with Alexander and her family to “help with the transition.” “They miss him terribly and want to see him, and they talk to him daily,” she said.
“Hopefully his social security gets here soon so that I can apply for his passport and we can get him back home.”
In another video, the nanny, who is a mum of three children, said that she treats Alexander like one of her own kids. She explained: “We give him all the hugs and love and attention and everything that he needs so that he can grow. We don’t hold back, he’s spoiled, he’s loved, and played with, and sang to. Just like he was my own kid.”
Since being posted, the original video has racked up more than 113,000 likes and hundreds of comments from people who were heartbroken by the situation. One person said: “This is the saddest situation ever. Poor baby when he has to go to strangers who are his actual family by no fault of their own.”
Another added: “Poor baby. The trauma he is going to go through once he’s away from you. Breaks my heart just thinking about it.”
While another wrote: “So sad his parents are missing his first year of life.”
Why is abortion illegal???
“Why is abortion illegal??? In my opinion all birth mothers who gave up children WILLINGLY belong in jail. I would rather have been aborted. This existence of not being apart of two families and being unable to have children of my own is unbearable.”
This is a post on one of the adoption related groups I belong too on Facebook which really got my back up. I have been a member of various adoption groups and forums since late 2004 and am saddened that education is still as bad now as it was 16 years ago. The problem is this person knows exactly what they are getting at but from the point of view of a mother, I’m not the only one, that ‘willingly’ gave up my son as that’s how the adoption industry portrays. I do know there are mothers who really didn’t want their children and haven’t wanted reunion but they are a minority. My point is that I’m still willing to speak out that willing surrendering of a child isn’t that common and people should educate themselves. From my son’s point of view he knows what it’s like to be rejected by his father and to a certain extent by a family member.
The reality is we didn’t willingly give our children up, they were taken away / stolen because of the greed of adoption agencies and our mothers didn’t want us to be single mothers / it was shameful to have a baby out of wedlock.
Of course these days there is a big difference between the UK and the US these days as private adoption stopped in the UK. With mothers having access to benefits saw the decline of infant adoption in the UK although forced adoption still continues – forced adoptions are illegal but extremely difficult for parents to stop.
I shouldn’t have responded to the post as I still get attacked for telling the truth because people accuse me of not reading properly, in denial that I ‘chose’ adoption, I regret the ‘decision’ and so on, My response was because of the amount of people who haven’t believed the truth over the years and they will never understand the pain they cause.
“….. …. I am one of those mothers who you reduce to the act of giving birth. I, like many other mothers, chose life for my son, I wanted to raise him but he was stolen from me because my mother didn’t want a daughter to be a single mother. It was harder to adopt babies by the time my son was born as mothers knew their rights. I lost my son because my mother and the adoption agency lied to me and it was 23 years later I found out the truth. I don’t even know who signed the Consent to Surrender when he was 6 weeks old as it was very conveniently lost yet I was able to have all the other relevant paperwork post reunion which should have been given to me 23 years previously. None of the information was given by me and the only truth was a description of me and his father. It was that bad that there was two completely different jobs down for his father but he had never done either of them. Instead of spewing out your ignorance try educating yourself.”
Maybe I should have made myself crystal clear that to the world I ‘willingly’ gave my son up and been more polite at the end but I’m tired of being polite. I’m tired of people coming across as ignorant, not educating or show that they have educated themselves. I’m tired of mothers are made out to willingly getting rid of their children. On the other hand he could have been more specific – how do I know if he knows that not all adoptions will done willingly.
The response I got back was from a female:
” ….. I re-read the original post. No where does it say that all mothers gave their babies up willingly, only those that did should go to jail. Adoptees have the right to their feelings on this.”
Disliked adoption phrases Part Two
Over the years family (my in-laws) and friends who found out, I had a son and we had connected have made ‘uneducated’ comments. I got sick to death of the ‘how wonderful’ it was that we reunited comments in particular. Other comments have been ‘it was for the best’, ‘you were young’ and so on which, in turn, has meant that I have had to be extremely calm and explain that I could have raised my son. I shouldn’t have to explain myself but it’s the only way to explain the dark side of adoption.
It’s been far easier to explain to the adoption community of the dark side of adoption. I’ve had my battles and it’s been worth me standing my ground.
I hate it when anybody says ‘it was God’s plan’ because it’s never in God’s plan that newborns are adopted. If that was true every parent would be surrendering their baby for adoption and adopting somebody else’s baby. It is as bad as saying God put a baby in another woman’s womb just so a couple can adopt him or her.
I remember my son asking me not to say anything negative about his adopters. My response back was on the lines of ‘Why would I as I don’t know them?’
Over the years I have been irritated by the DNA/nature doesn’t matter but nurture does and even a few adoptees have said that to me. If they don’t matter why do mothers feel profound feelings of pain and loss, why do adoptees want to know who they look like?
I’ve been told a few times that I’m not a mother as I didn’t raise my son with my mother being one of them. She and the others didn’t ‘get it’ that
Thankfully these days I don’t get so involved in adoption in real life online unless I feel up to it. It’s really not worth the aggravation, arguments, bad feelings or the effect on it has on my mental health.
Flawed
My life ended the day I was told I couldn’t stop my son’s adoption. Unless you have been a victim of forced (illegal) adoption you cannot begin to understand the profound feelings of loss. It is heart-wrenching and for me, I emotionally broke down and from that day forward I mask. I also lost my trust due to what my mother and the adoption agency did to me. To the outside world, I was fine but inside I was an emotional wreck. My friends used to joke I was an ice maiden towards men and kept them at arm’s length. I vowed I would never get married or have any more children as I was so scared that I would be forced to surrender again.
I became very lonely as I was too scared to tell anybody how I was feeling nor did I understand I was severely depressed. For too many years I was accused of being a drama queen, moody and that there were people who were far more in need of support. In the early days, the closest my mother came to showing she cared was when I received a letter from my son’s adopters. I broke down in tears and my mother hugged me tightly until I stopped crying. Even then I couldn’t talk and suffered in silence. Adoption is like an invisible amputation and every part of my body ached for and missed my son. It was another 23 years before I could start talking about my son’s adoption.
It wasn’t until more recent years that I realised that I suffer from P.T.S.D. although I have never been formally diagnosed with suffering from it. Doctors don’t seem to understand the trauma of forced adoption or make a connection. My son will be 39 years old this year and I still suffer from the trauma of losing him, sadly it will be with me for the rest of my life. I also have a history of self-harming as it was the only way to release emotional pain and I have tried overdosing over the years.
Since opening up about forced adoption I started educating people about the effect of forced adoption on mothers. It really was tough going for the first couple of years particularly when I got the courage to state that the term birth mother is offensive. I had never heard of the term until 2004 having joined up with adoption forums and groups. It is a stupid term because mothers don’t just give birth they go through nine months of pregnancy. Fathers don’t go through pregnancy or giving birth so it’s a ridiculous term to give them. It’s also stupid to give the extended family the ‘birth’ title as they can’t collectively go through pregnancy and childbirth. The real truth is it’s a term invented in America to make adopters feel better about themselves and came over to the U.K. A couple of years ago I had a disagreement with a friend at bible study as she referred to herself as a birth mother. I asked her not to as it’s offensive to mothers who have surrendered a child and why the term was created. She really didn’t ‘get it’ and used the argument that as she had had children that made her a birth mother. I explained why the term was invented but if all mothers had always been referred to as birth mothers it wouldn’t have bothered me. In the end, I got so annoyed I had to walk away from the situation. We have never talked about it since.
I am still friendly with other mothers who have surrendered babies. adoptive parents and adoptees although these days we keep in touch on Facebook. We all still learn from each other for all sorts of reasons.
In the beginning ….
I was pregnant at the age of 19 years old and knew I was pregnant after I had split on bad terms with the father of my son. Even so, I knew I wanted to raise my baby and I had a job so I knew I could afford to raise my child. I was scared and didn’t know how to tell my parents but eventually, they had to know.
It went badly and my mother was determined that my baby was to be adopted but I refused to agree to it. My father didn’t say much at all, he simply let my mother get on with it. It was a horrible time and I suffered from low self-esteem and lacked confidence. I didn’t even see a social worker from the adoption agency until after my son was born. All I knew was that I wanted to be a mother and raise my child.
Infant adoption was slowing down by the start of the 1980s but it didn’t stop social workers from being pushy over babies being adopted. I was one of many mothers over the years who were pressured to surrender without knowing my rights. My mother made me feel worthless, I wouldn’t be a good enough mother yet I was capable of looking after my niece. She was born just over two months before my son was born. My mother continually put me down and made threats such as;
I would be kicked out
I would lose my job because I would be homeless
I wouldn’t be able to get rented accommodation
I wouldn’t be able to get any benefits
My son would be taken off me because I was homeless so I may as well agree to the adoption.
It was relentless brainwashing to try and convince me adoption was the best option. The first time I saw the social worker I told her I didn’t want to give my son up and it was my mother who was all for adoption. She said she would put a stop to the adoption but ‘it would be a good idea for my son to go into foster care until I got myself sorted out’. I did manage to see my son once before I left the hospital and I will never forget that.