This story was created as part of the VANISH Storytelling Workshops for Adult Adoptees, a new initiative supported by Relationships Victoria and the Australian Government’s Forced Adoption Support Services Small Grants Program.
Facilitated by adoptee, theatre director, and teaching artist Dr Alison Ingram, the workshops offered a safe and creative space for adoptees to explore and express their experiences through storytelling.
“The Events”
1. First Event: Infant-Maternal Separation
I am Libby, I was born on 14th of January 1969 at the Queen Victoria Hospital, Melbourne. It is my understanding that I was immediately removed at birth from my mother. I spent three weeks, or, 21 days, with the nurses in the hospital until my mum and dad collected me and took me to their home in Dandenong. I went to a family that consisted of Mum, Mary, Dad, Peter and two brothers, David aged 14, and Tim, aged 11 years. I am told they loved me very much and that I was a happy baby. A recent discussion with my mum bought information to light, apparently, I was a bit odd. On my first night at home my mum walked into my room in the middle of the night to check on me to find that I was awake, lying quietly in my bassinet and when she came into view, I looked at her and smiled. I now know that I had had three weeks to develop my people pleasing protective parts in order to survive.
- Second Event: The Telling or Discovering “You’re Adopted”
I don’t have any recollection of actually being told that I was adopted. I have always known. We had a book called “Don’t tell me about Goldilocks” which is a story about a child who was adopted and the things the parents had to do to adopt the them. When we went to collect my new sister, Sophie from the Queen Victoria Hospital, it was to adopt her too. I remember that day in February 1972 sitting in the car, finding a plastic nappy cover and putting it on my head and then looking out the window at the hospital as we parked. Adoption.
Whenever I meet new people, one of the first things I tell them is that I’m adopted. It’s always present in my life. My parents have health issues, heart, depression, diabetes, arthritis, but that’s ok, I’m not related to them. I’m adopted.
- Third Event: Knowing, “You’re Not Allowed to Know”
I knew I was adopted, but I was not allowed to know who my mother was. I believe I got the story that my mother loved me so much that she gave me up for adoption. She was young and couldn’t afford to keep a baby. She was not married.
What was wrong with me that she didn’t want me?
I became quite depressed throughout high school. We moved house when I was 16, I hated that. I refused to change school. My sister would have arguments with my parents and tell them she would run away and find her real mother. I never said anything like that. That sounded too hurtful, I would never do that to my parents. I put anything about knowing about my mother and father completely out of my mind. I’m not allowed to know. I don’t need to know. I wouldn’t admit it but, I secretly did want to know. I was so sad.
4. Fourth Event: Active Searching
The search for my mother fell in my lap.
It started in June 1988, I was 19. I said to my mum, “I’ve got something to tell you”, I was pregnant. I felt so bad and ashamed. What I did next played into the Adoption fairytale narrative I’d been bought up to believe; “I will adopt it out”. I look back on that now and it’s abhorrent. Awful.
My own adoption was through The Mission of St James and St John. There, at an adoption meeting, I was given a large envelope containing documentation, an original birth certificate, complete with ADOPTED stamped on it. A form with information: Mother, Vanessa from Hobart. My name, Janne Robyn. Father, not named. Uncle, Philip, father and uncle, mechanics. Dutch and Spanish on my mother’s side, Father, English.
I let this sit in its envelope for over a year. My baby, whom I kept, was now 1.
Search, father.
Christmas 2016, I received an AncestryDNA kit. Two years later, I sent it in. Results. I have relatives who share DNA with me. Good. I am real. Good.
No results for father.
April 2022, I received an Ancestry email notification from a relative saying her husband is likely my uncle. The uncle, Phil, phoned his brother to inform him about me. He is married with a daughter and three grandsons and the family genealogist has traced parts of our family back to 1166.
There is history. I exist.
- The Fifth Event: Reunion
Reunion, mother.
I met Vanessa for the first time at 3pm on Saturday 11th of January 1991. It was at the “Spilt Milk” café in McCrae, I sat waiting for her in the café, I was facing the door. I knew what she looked like as I had a photo of her, but still didn’t know who I was expecting. She walked in the door and I saw her and she smiled. We walked across the road to the beach and we sat on the sand. She had the same knees as me. Her hands were similar to mine, long and thin. Looking like your family, for the majority of the population is common. For adopted people, not. Little wonder we don’t feel we belong.
She wrote to me in the days following our meeting:
17/1/1991
“Dear Libby,
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to meet you. I enjoyed your easy company, however anxious slash nervous we may have been, you are an articulate person and obviously a clear thinker you must do well in exams.
It seems an absolute age already since Saturday.
Could you give me a call at work please after 4:00 PM Wednesday if you’re able and willing.
Best wishes
Vanessa”
I was, and I did.
Many more letters followed as many had prior to our meeting.
Reunion, father.
I spoke with my father a week after locating him and days after his 77th birthday I have to meet him! An inner voice telling me “I can’t be too excited, it may not work out. How happy am I allowed to be?” I told mum and dad. They were happy for me. My father is Adrian.
Deep breath.
Smiles.
My People.
Father.
Found.
THE AFTERMATH OF THE REUNION
The reunion is the start of a new story. One door closes and another door opens.
Adoption is like an onion, there are many layers. One layer is the fairytale the world believes. Few people want to know, let alone hear the truth, lest it burst their colourful bubble that adoption is “good”.
There are many things I will never know. Questions about my mother, Vanessa that will never be answered. I knew her for ten years before she died of ovarian cancer in 1999.
I am yet to ask Adrian if I can add him to my Birth Certificate. This is important to me.
I find it difficult to keep up a relationship with Adrian, Annette and Simone. They are really welcoming and beautiful when I visit them. The distance between us makes it hard.
My mental health is an issue for me. Adoption has done this to me.
Life is fine.
And life can also be a huge struggle.