“The social worker came to my room at different times to tell me to ‘Sign!’ and I refused. On one of these occasions she sent in a very big nurse who closed the door and called me names. I remember mostly the sentence ‘You are the most selfish girl in the world, you are going to ruin this child’s life'”
A few months before the age of 16 I was raped.
I lived in an abusive home where abuse reins. I was in fear of my life for six months at home.
I left home with a couple paper bags realizing that getting bigger clothes wasn’t going to work for me any more. I had a few dollars in my pocket, I hopped on a bus not knowing where I was going but knowing that my father would literally kill me if her found out.
My family doctor had offered me an abortion, while it was still time and I declined.
I took a bus to the Guelph bus station and from there towards Kitchener where I had lived a long time before my father bought a house in Guelph.
There was a sign in the bus saying something like “Pregnant and Alone” with a phone number. The sign said they could help. When I called they asked me if I could make it there. I had already walked quite a bit and I had only 25 cents left. I still remember I told them I could try to walk and call if I couldn’t make it because I had 25 cents left for the call. They sent a car for me, I cant remember if it was a taxi.
The emotion had worn me out but when I arrived at the door they asked me immediately to sign papers. I asked if I could read them and sign later. “You can’t pass this door if you don’t sign” was the answer. I was so tired I just signed.
They told me I was obliged to see a social worker. The social worker only wanted to talk about what I would do with the baby. She did fill out a paper with info about me. Which I later learned was for the parents of my son.
When I would try to tell her I loved him and was attached to him and hoped to find a way to keep him she would answer “You have nothing to offer him”. She would ask me how I would live and point out that I had no education.
Then she would tell me adoption was the best solution. After either the first or second visit with her I was so depressed I said I didn’t want to see her the next time I was told she had arrived. The lady who was in charge of the house told me I was obliged to see her. That was part of the papers I had signed.
So the same thing happed over and over. I decided in my head to lie to her because I was exhausted by the game of being told repetitively negative things about myself. I thought that when I got to the hospital I would do what I wanted.
Although I came from a home with intense abuse the social worker became irritated whenever I tried to talk about my personal problems. She wanted to stay on subject all the time. I remember wanting to talk of the rape or of what had occurred in my home and she had always become very irritated.
When a girl gave birth she looked like a zombie then disappeared before she would even have a chance to tell us what occurred. Not long before I was to give birth the house called me into the living room and had two journalists a man and woman take my picture. I was so embarrassed. I insisted that my picture not show my face.
I saw my picture the next day in the newspaper, with my big whale belly. This was embarrassing for a girl my age. Also the house obliged us to participate in activities in which we walked around in shopping malls. I hated going to public places pregnant at that age.
When I had my son I was so surprised at visiting hours they would not bring him to me. All the other mothers were brought their babies. I insisted they bring me my baby and they all told me “no, doctors orders, he is being adopted”. I told them I loved him and wanted to keep him, they ignored me. They where upset when I would walk around the hallways. But I told them I was just doing exercise. I didn’t know children lose weight after their birth. I was looking for my son at feeding time and I saw a baby in the nurses arms behind the nurses station. She was feeding him. He was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. I stopped looking for my son I was mesmerized. Suddenly I saw my name on his little bracelet. I couldn’t believe he was no longer all puffy. I thought I would die that very moment.
The social worker came to my room at different times to tell me to “sign!” and I refused. On one of these occasions she sent in a very big nurse who closed the door and called me names. I remember mostly the sentence “you are the most selfish girl in the world, you are going to ruin this child’s life” She had been very aggressive and screaming, I remember I wanted to die when she left I was crying. I felt like trash. This was in 1977 so it was a long time ago so I don’t know all the names she called me.
The social worker came back, probably the next day she came often when I was at the hospital. She was very aggressively saying “sign!”. I told her no. I kept saying “I want to see my baby”. I had spoken to another woman in the hospital, she had had a handicaped baby, I remember she said her husband took acid and their baby would never walk. I’m not sure if he had Down Syndrome but something like it. She actually asked me to adopt my baby when I told her. I couldn’t believe how much people try to profit from others. She said that if her baby wasnt operated on that he would die. She could let him die if she had a baby to bring home. If I had to lose my child it would most definately not be to a woman who’s husband takes acid. I think she was the one who suggested to say I can’t give up my son without ever seeing his face. So when the social worker was getting angry I told her that. She said I could see him if I signed the papers. I told her that if I signed she might not respect our agreement. They brought me my son for about 10 minutes and then took him. I remember the social worker watched me and was irritated that I unwrapped him to see his fingers and toes. It was like as if he was not my son. She thought I would hold him in the tightly wrapped blanket and just give him back and sign. I ignored her and did what I want.
When she took him away she then asked me again to sign. I refused and she got so angry that I remember she said very loudly “you hypocrite, you said you would sign”. I figured if anyone was a hypocrite it was not me. They played dirty and I did not feel guilty for doing this.
They discharged me from the hospital without my baby. The social worker wanted to bring me to my father’s house even though child services had been to our home on child abuse claims. My father beat us regularily. My eldest brother sexually abused me.
She brought me to my brothers place a one bedroom apartement with his girlfriend. She asked my brother if he thought it was a good idea for me to go back to my dads house. My brother who had not been abused because my father only beat the girls, told her that it was a good plan. Although I was crying loudly she said “you’re going to your dads”. I screamed at her that I would rather die. She ended off dumping me at the YWCA who told me that I could pay a month later. She had inscribed me in school, and said that if I didn’t go “She would see to it that I didn’t get a penny from welfare”. I believed her, by then she seemed to be God in person. I went to school with stiches in my butt. It still hurt to sit. My son was born sept 10 1977. I was in school just a few days after my release from the hospital. I was so deeply depressed, and then suddenly in the cafeteria the boy in front of me pointed to my shirt. Even though they had given me an injection so as not to make milk (without telling me till after) , the milk was running down my t-shirt. A white constant trickle.
I was mortified. I left school and I remember thinking I would starve. I went to find a job. I remember I broke down and cried in the office of the owner of Jackmoore manufacturing, a metal factory. I was saying that if he didn’t give me a job I would starve. I know now that I was suffering post partum depression.
The social worker still needed me. She called and asked me to sign the papers again. She said if I signed I could hold him for the twenty minute ride to the home that would keep my child temporarily. I couldn’t get access to him anyways it seemed to be game over. She came and picked me up and I held him. Again she treated me like a child and was upset when I tried to touch his little fingers. When I arrived at the home a woman ran to the car and ripped him away from me as soon as I managed to open the door and get out. I remember how she gave me a killer dirty look. I always remembered the way she looked at me, if looks could kill man.
The social worker brought me to the courthouse. I was by then steadily crying and my nose was like a horrible leaky faucet. She brought me into a room where there was a lawyer. The room was very small with just a table in the middle. The man seemed concerned about my state. He looked truly horrified by the way I looked. He said if you change your mind you can call me you have 30 days to change your mind. He held a card out to me. The social worker was closer to him she had entered the room first and she grabbed the card, to which he did not object. I felt by now that I had no right to object to any of this like as if I was in a principals office. She said “If she changes her mind she can call me and I will inform you”.
I called often and eacht time was told that she was on vacation that week. However the next week also I was told the same thing. I spoke to a woman who said she was her secretary and said how important it was that I had changed my mind. I gave her my information and asked that she act quickly. I called the whole thirty days. I am not sure at what frequence it may have been once to twice a day at first and maybe every two or three days after. I was always told she was on vacation. When the adoption was legal the social worker was suddenly there in her office. I told her I was worried about my son. she said not to worry she knew the family well. I asked how she knew them. She answered that she was their caseworker helping them find a child. I thought it was in conflict of interest that she had acted as my social worker as she explained she had been looking for a child for them for years. She thought that would help me saying that they very much desired a child. I only always remembered that thinking I must have looked like a sitting duck when she met me.
I did not know who the lawyer was. I did not drive a car as I had left home when I was sixteen and had only lived in Guelph a few months. Guelph is where the courthouse was. I did not know what else I could do who I could call. My inexperience cost me my child. When I was twenty years old a man tried to rape me and the whole thing came flooding back. I still thought about my son obsessively, and I tried to kill myself.
My full name is Marie Aline Gabrielle Parent (spouse of Vincent Labadie 25 years now). I was born 12/12/60 in Québec and I lived in Kitchener when my child was born at the st Mary’s hospital 10/sept/1977. He was put up for adoption in Guelph because my father had bought a house in Guelph, I lived there for a few months of my pregnancy. I have been speaking with Sheri Sexton of Ontario. The social worker I spoke to you of in my last letter is Carol Glass. She is the one who coerced me out of my child. Imagine if I would have left on foot when the contractions had started and made my way to the kitchener waterloo hospital. I might still have my son. I think the house for unwed mothers had an arangement with the st Mary’s hospital as the house was so close the the other hospital yet they had the girls give birth at St Mary’s. Was it even legal to have a mother sign away the right to her own doctor. That was part of the papers I signed when entering the house tired, when they first took me in. They told me I couldn’t set foot into the house without signing the papers. Six months pregnant I had just traveled by bus from kitchener to guelph. They couldn’t let me rest before asking me to sign papers accepting to use their “house doctor”. Had I left just before my sons birth what rights did social services have on me. My guess is none. I just didn’t know about welfare and stuff like that. I think the paper they make you sign is to psychologically bind you. When you say you want your own doctor they tell you “you signed, you agreed to use our doctor” They knew the minute I entered the door they would have my child. The house rules where designed to take him from me.
I think letting my father kill me would have been kinder. But what the hell am I thinking hoping for justice now? Somewhere some young girl is going through exactly what I went through, I guess that is the only thing that makes fighting worth it. After my child was stolen my first husband married me to make children for his mother. She was harassing him for grand kids. He played straight till she was born. Then he told me now your going to go back to work and leave her with my mother. I had lost one child. He stated in front of Shirly Love apointed by the courts to watch the visits (stenographer) that he would take her and bring her to Italy and I would never see her. I couldn’t lose another battle. He said he wanted “all or nothing”. I figured I had already tasted what nothing felt like. I had to flee and start over in order to not loose her. Here is a poem I wrote about that ordeal. I wrote this when I was much younger. I hope you get the gist of it.
The child of winter solstice
Through golden fields is free to roam
Here where ancient felons
And a nihilist called home
Parturition was her prison
In time her liberty
Retribution the offspring
Her reverence plain to see
Malevolent marauder
A seed did sow
To reap the earth
Upon which did grow
A woman and friend
I’ve come to know
The child of winter solstice
Through golden fields
Is free to roam
Forever more, her will her own