Thursday, July 31, 2008

The First Steps to Discover what really Happened

Well, today I contacted the Royal Women's Hospital in Randwick, in relation to retrieving my Mother's very important medical records for the Hospital at Crown Street that she had given birth in. I have gotten the ball rolling, with some request forms being sent directly to my Mother, so that she can find all the records that exist on her stay and her prenatal care for that Hospital.

I have also contacted DOCS Past Adoptions, and they have let me know of a way to search for the documents which tell us who signed over the Authority for the Adoption, and I have also had them send these requests directly to my Mother so we can start proceeding with that course of action also.

It is difficult to know if there will be any records left to show, but we can only pray that the universe is on our side, and that those medical files are miraculously in storage archives somewhere in Randwick.

It is going to be interesting to see how far we can get before there is a harsh obstacle in our way. I sure hope there never is one, and that our will is going to be great enough to finally get the truth.

After we have these records, if, we get these records, we can join support organisations through DOCS adoptions, and if Jason indeed lives, there are ways to find his name and medical records and for Mum to have a way to reunite again.

Wish us luck... :) we really need it at this point.

Contact from a Guiding Light

Hi Sarah

It was common practice at Crown stree to tell mothers particulary young ones that the baby had died and was later adopted out, what you can do is to ask for your mothers medical records they are available from the Royal Womens Hospital at randwick

Also you can contact the Department of Community Services Adoption Branch and ask them for a supply authority to seach to see if the child was adopted out by your mothers mother as you mum was a minor at the time, is your grandmother still alive? If so why not ask her what went on.

Please keep me updated on your progress

Mum's Story & my Letter to OriginsNsw

"My name is Sarah, my Mother "N" was a patient of Crowne St Women's Hospital in 1970, and for years has not known the fate of her child who was born there.

My mother was only 14 at the time, I have read many similarities between what you have written in your Webpage about the treatment you endured, and what my Mother explains to me as having been done to her. She was unwed (obviously as she was underage as well so she was seen as completely unfit by all Hospital staff as to being capable of keeping her child). Like you, she had been booked in for a termination by a parent and couldnt go through with it, adamant she wanted to keep her child. On the day she gave birth, she was two weeks overdue. The week before when she had attended her Doctor's appointment, asking about her baby's lack of movement since being overdue, the Doctor used some kind of device to hear the heartbeat and assured her the baby was fine and living. (We now know that overdue baby's have less room to move and tend to decrease in activity at this late stage of pregnancy)

Two weeks overdue, she went into labour. Sent by ambulance from her work at 9.30 am, on her way to Crowne St Women's Hospital, the staff in the ambulance apparently knocked her out, she was given some kind of sedation and did not wake until the baby had already been born (no Ceasarian just this creepy idea of stripping young women of their right to be conscious while birthing their baby vaginally!!! suspicious much???). She awoke to her Mother patting her head, and telling her she was a very strong girl. Noone would tell her where her baby was, whether it was a boy or girl.Finally she was told by a young nurse after a day or so, that she had had a stillbirth, and that they were unable to tell the sex. I find this extremely suspicious, due to the fact that a decomposing body does NOT disintegrate at such a rate that genetalia is not visible after only one week even if submerged!!! Somehow my Mother has gotten the impression she had a son, she named him Jason. But no viewing was permitted, not by her nor her Mother who were both insisting they would like to view the child. No evidence was ever brought forward that he was indeed stillborn, just assurances by staff that they would not want to see the child and that "The choice has been made for you" (Supposedly by God?). There was no funeral arrangement permitted, and that was that, my Mother left without her baby and without any evidence of him having died at all. No proof, only strange and obscure medical treatment and blank walling.

I would like to know how we could possibly go about finding out the truth in this situation. Do you have any advice for us? I am wondering whether we can firstly, find out whether a baby born on the 02/04/1970 was adopted out of there, whether there was a death or partial birth certificate. Anything at all to prove either way what happened.

In the Beginning

In the beginning, there was a breach of trust, there was abuse of power, underhanded people in high places, and the whisking away of a nameless child from the womb of his unknowing young Mother. Confusion, fear, and lies followed, and an unfinished story has been left flapping in the breeze, waiting to be captured and to have its' own ending written for it.

Now, comes this search, for truth and for the knowledge of what really went on, and if out there is an elder sibling of mine, who has lost some of who they are, has lost their knowledge of who they might have been, of what blood runs in their veins, of whether they look like their other siblings, of what happened to his Mother and to explain some of his story to us and to himself.

Thanks to the glorious google, thanks to the resource of the internet, theres now a way of confirming old tales and stories fogged up by time. There was a daughter who finally listened and asked the right questions, and the realisation that something so very wrong had taken place that could no longer be ignored, that now is the time to start searching for the truth and give some real closure to My Mother, who has been through so much.

I will keep this blog as a testament to the trials and inevitable tribulations that are sure to come our way in this journey to find the truth of what happened, I hope it can have a happy ending, I hope that my Brother indeed lives and that although the story we expect to find is terrible, his life story did not end 28 years ago.