a pregnant young girlLucy – A birth mother’s journey

I was a girl of 16, I was pregnant, it was the 1960’s, adoption was the norm. I was a child myself, not like the 16 year old’s of today. My parents ran my life and owned everything about me. I would be a child until I was 21 years old.

I have told this story to people close to me many, many times, but I have never written it down, so here goes. In my 40’s I had some counselling, the counselling was the beginning of the journey which brought me to where I am today. The counsellor was another woman, I will call her Phil, she was not much older than myself, my resounding memory of her was that when she hit a brick wall she met it full on.

I was not an easy client, the outside was polite smiling and content. I often spoke in the third person, and was not always feeling my emotions. I would say that the things I remember most was that it was like a movie, I could re-run. It was and still is, but now I feel it, happy and sad. If people looked into my eyes back then, the smile or pain was not there to see, I hid it all so well, so very well.

It was not until I trained as a Counsellor that I realised that Phil must have used every skill she ever possessed  and then some more with me. She gradually learned how to connect with me, or rather she helped me connect with myself. I still have warm feelings and smiles for this woman and hope one day that our paths cross again, Then I can thank her for the last and best 20 years of my life.

Over the weeks and months of counselling this woman worked on finding out about me, gently digging. She discovered my trust in people was none existent. I trusted books, they held facts, facts could be proved. She worked so hard and I am sure I must have given her many sleepless nights in order to reach my pain.

That is all for today, I think I am going to do this in chunks.

Lucy – 28th January 2013

When I was at the mother and baby unit they changed everyone’s name, as it was all a big secret. I was called Lucy. This is her journey to who I am today. So, so many girls hated the fact that their names were changed, I never had a problem with it and I’m sure it started me on the road to my new life.

I was in my 40’s before I met another birth mother. I was shocked at how they all seemed to have a common thread. Say like death all following the same path but ”in different ways”. Mine was not like that and made me feel so alone and isolated. I accepted that my path to that moment in time was very different from most of the other birth mothers, my years before I was 16 had made me somewhat stronger than these other birth mothers.

Lucy – 29th January 2013