Valerie Andrews, Toronto, Ontario, 1970

“Our guilt and shame were reinforced every day in many many ways. We were unworthy to be mothers, and part of our punishment for our sin was losing our babies to adoption – the message was clear.”

Yorkville 1969

On the avenue it wasn’t uncommon to see a youthful Margaret Atwood, poet Dennis Lee, Moses Znaimer and Norman DePoe’s activist son David. John Kay was there too, along with adventure travel writer Norman Elder whose Bay Street home for wayward sons was pungent with the smell of cannabis and a zoo for exotic snakes and spiders. Elder was a rebel with Post Road roots who drove a beat up soft-top Lincoln with animal bones wired to its frame. He also routinely walked a pet pig down the avenue; the pig painted in Day-Glo colours. There was Chicago, a lanky black who liked to pretend he was some kind of cosmic gangster. And let’s not forget Myra, a Slavic midget who bullied her way into everything and everywhere, including John Lennon’s suite at the King Eddie. She was a fixture at the Rock Pile, more often than not hectoring some imported headline band on stage and no one ever stopped to call her out. It was a time and place where the misfits, intellectuals, bikers, hippies, draft dodgers and suburban tomcats somehow managed to fit together. It wasn’t always an easy fit, but by and large the mood was calm and the peace was kept.

Lurking amid all, undercover narcs and con men, parents looking for lost children – and gypsies, candlestick makers, lost souls and artists of all stripes. It was a time of peace, love and groovyness. It was a time when America was caught up in a dirty war that couldn’t be won. It was a time of free love, and the ‘village offered a community of sorts. Bernie Fiedler offered us a home to dream in on the avenue, and those dreams have carried on far beyond those hazy, lazy distant times. – David Farrell

As a teen, I was a rebellious, mixed up, idealistic girl.   A nice girl from a nice family – It was the spring of 1969 and I had I joined the crowd in Yorkville in Toronto…. It was in this setting in Toronto as one of the wayward sons and daughters that hung out at Norm’s place on Bay St. that my story began…or maybe it began much before that…

My story is probably fairly typical of what happened to many girls during the sixties, except for the ending…the idealistic dreams of peace and love became a nightmare which was to last a lifetime for so many of us –

By June of 1969 I knew something was wrong, and that I was most likely pregnant. I did not tell one living soul. I stayed home most of the summer just hanging around the house thinking about it all the time.

I have learned that it is quite typical for a “pregnant teen” to deny her situation and not to tell anyone until it is too late for any choices about the pregnancy. When I finally told my mother I was already five months pregnant. We went  to the family doctor who said “Well, it’s too late for an abortion”, and I said “What’s an abortion?” My naiveté strikes me today.

The very next day I was taken by my mother to the Salvation Army “Bethany Home” at 450 Pape Avenue in Toronto.  Here we were isolated – our names were changed, our movements restricted and visitors were not encouraged. We were not allowed to wear our own clothes but had to choose clothes from the “Clothes Room”, which were donations of maternity clothes. No visitors were allowed except approved ones which were few, and no male visitors were allowed. There was one pay phone for everyone with a five minute limit.  Our mail was read and censored.

We did light chores there…I was one of only three girls tutored for my Grade 11 studies. We went downtown on the subway for “clinic days”….since we were three or four pregnant girls together, people figured out pretty quickly who we were and called us names and once even spit on us. Our guilt and shame were reinforced every day in many ways. We were unworthy, unfit, to be mothers, and part of our punishment for our sin was losing our baby to adoption – the message was clear.

We were given no prenatal classes or information about labour and delivery…no counselling. We were given no options that might help us to keep our babies – it was assumed from the start by “The Home” that “the baby” would be adopted. I was so naïve, I quite literally did not realize I had another choice until a new roommate told me she was keeping her baby. My ridiculous question rings in my brain today…”ARE YOU ALLOWED TO KEEP YOUR BABY? She told me of course, and I went directly to the Brigadier to discuss this possibility for myself. I was told “Who Do you think you Are?? “ “You can’t Keep your baby – you selfish girl!  “How dare you come in here with this!”…She was a formidable woman and I did what I was told. After a tirad of some time, I left thinking “She is right, who am I to keep my baby? I shouldn’t have asked”. Apparently my roommate was “ 27 and she’s French Canadian!” (whatever that was supposed to mean).

I had been assigned a Social Worker and she visited me a few times there. When I asked her about keeping my baby she told me that without my parents support it would be impossible.  She gave me no other information about resources that would help me. There appeared to be no other way – no other choices or possibilities were set before me. No one mentioned “Mothers Allowance”, and I had no idea such a thing existed. We were young, vulnerable and ignorant. We had no idea of our rights and conveniently no one told us. We had no legal counsel and no counselling. They knew exactly what they were doing.

I did not CHOOSE adoption as I did not have a considered, informed choice. Adoption was assumed and we were on an assembly line. No one asked “Do you want to keep your baby?”  Do you think your baby would want to be away from you?” “Do you know that your baby will be affected by the separation from you as a newborn baby?” “Do you know that the emotional trauma for you and your child will last a lifetime?” They knew. But they did not tell me. They told me I was “giving a gift” to a “deserving infertile couple”. What made them more deserving than my child’s own living flesh and blood? Why should I have given complete strangers my baby as a “gift”? It was all lies to get my child away from me to punish me for my sin of having premarital sex and becoming a mother before I was married…for breaking the moral code..

No one pointed out how the emotional trauma would damage me for life, and also my son.

When I went into labour on January 5, 1970 I was taken by taxi to Grace Hospital in Toronto at 2:00 am by a Salvation Army worker, checked in at admitting and left there by myself. I had no one with me and was unprepared for the “prep”. I was terrified. I thought I was going to die and as it turned out I very nearly did.  I was all alone and in labour with no one on my side. I literally have no memory from approximately 3:00 am until 7:30 pm the next night when my son Christopher was born. My next memory is being in the delivery room. My arms were restrained at my sides, and I was calling out. A nurse at my right side whispered “Shut up You Slut” into my ear. I saw the doctor in front of me and then I saw red and then nothing. I woke up later in a dark hospital room. They told me I had haemorrhaged and had needed a blood transfusion. I  recently received my hospital records and did find that this was true and that I had been given two units of blood and was unconcious for two hours after birth in serious condition.  I was told I had a boy.

The next day I was wheeled down to the nursery to see him. He was at the very back of the nursery. I asked the nurse to bring him to the window at the front of the nursery and she refused saying “that baby is for adoption.” I insisted and after a discussionwith a supervisor complied.  I then asked to hold and feed my baby and was told again, “No that baby is for adoption.” Keep in mind that my baby was being kept from me, his rightful mother, before I had signed anything at all! Again I insisted, and finally my baby was given to me.  I had been given the cancer causing drug DES to prevent lactation and my breasts had been bound with a “Breast Binder” which was a very tight physical binding around the breasts also to prevent lactation.  All of this was done before consents.

I sang the Beatles song “Yesterday” to him…Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, now it looks as though they’re here to stay…oh I believe in yesterday. “ Yesterday, he was still safe inside me and we had been so happy together and my troubles did seem far away, but today was different. I named him Christopher.

On the 3rd day after birth the Social Worker came and I told her I wanted to keep my baby. She recorded this in the CAS notes (which I recently received from them).  At that time she gave me no information about Assistance or any other way I could keep my child..she just kept insisting that without my parents support it would not be possible. 

After 13 days I surrendered.  There was no other way that I could see. They came to take him away from me. They came to me as I was holding him and said “It’s time”.   I felt as if I was going to the electric chair. That was the moment.  The minute he was taken, something inside of me changed forever, and to this day I cannot describe the numbness, the frozen kind of tingling sickness that I have felt for 40 years every day of my life.  The next day I was discharged, and was told he had left the day before, but the recent hospital records I obtained showed he was released from hospital the day after I left there. The CAS lied to me about the location of my child. I have since learned that this was a common practice so that they could say the mother abandoned the child. I was not aware that I had the right to take him home with me. I do not recall signing anything at the time, and was certainly not given any kind of paper to keep. I left the hospital with nothing at all… no baby, no paper….nothing.

After being discharged l was sitting in a classroom one week later, still bleeding from birth, breasts bound. I was told not to tell anyone – ever.  I was told “you will forget about that baby”, “you will have other babies”, “you will be a real mother later”.  There was no counselling given by the CAS or the Home.  I remember being very depressed and very alone as I attended at their office and signed the Adoption papers by myself with three CAS workers in the room. I had no other choice. A 17 year old girl with three CAS workers…..no one to represent me or my child, no resources or support. When I hesitated, and looked up at them they told me – “go on and sign..” “you are doing the best thing for your baby”. The best thing for my baby was me, his mother. They told me “Just go on with your life as if it never happened”. I now know I suffer from PTSD…I was completely numb and did not feel anything at all.

I stayed frozen and numb deep inside for years.  I never talked about it, and if anyone asked “Do you want to find your child?  I said “NO”!!  I was severely traumatized by this event.  I had locked away the pain and trauma in a vault so tight that when I received a letter from my son requesting reunion I was actually terrified…terrified to open the vault, that is. I even considered not meeting him I was so terrified of opening that vault, and still so ashamed to tell the secret as I had been conditioned to do.

But I took the chance, and was reunited with my beautiful beautiful son Christopher…renamed Brian – funny to call him Brian when I had blessed him in my prayers every night as Christopher for 31 years. .. His adopters were not supportive of the reunion which caused him much emotional pain and conflict and tore him in two directions, trying to please all.

His sisters and I had six wonderful years together with him in our daily lives … until March 27, 2008 when he died of Testicular Cancer in Vancouver with us by his side.

It has taken me a year to realize that I cannot begin to grieve his death…the name “birthmother” bothering me and not knowing why, I kept going back to the adoption, the adoption… issues bothering me… I had to go back to the beginning and sort it all out – I am still doing that and still learning. The more I learn and the more I remember the angrier I become, and the angrier I become the more determined I am to get these stories out, and to help educate and support those women who are still suffering in silence. ..women with worse stories than mine.

Those who know me know I am not a victim – I am a fighter … however … I cannot even start to grieve the death of my son … because I have not even properly sorted out all the facts of his birth and grieved the first loss yet – this is going to be a long journey…

Valerie Andrews – Richmond Hill, Ontario 2009