Could you adopt… and be friends with the birth mother?
Adopted, Cath Staincliffe never dreamed she’d meet her birth mum – or that her two mothers would form such a close bond…
Standing outside in the sunshine on my 50th birthday, I watched two women chatting warmly and my heart swelled.
They looked so comfortable, you’d have thought they were old friends. In fact, they were both my mothers. This was the first time all three of us had gathered together. A decade earlier, we hadn’t even known each other’s names.
One was Evelyn, who’d given birth to me. The other, Margaret, had adopted me at seven weeks old.
Twelve years on from the party, I can still recall that astonishing sense of my past and present finally coming together.
I was reunited with my birth mother when I was 40.
I don’t imagine many adoptive parents have wanted to navigate the complicated emotional waters of getting to know the woman who gave birth to ‘their’ child – so much so that one day they’d stay as a guest in her home.
Yet my parents did just that – they stayed with my birth mother, Evelyn, before my party. The fact that the most significant people in my life were able to find such peace still feels remarkable.
It’s an easiness that happened slowly. Theirs was a relationship built through carefully worded letters, thoughtful phone calls and mutual respect.
In 1956, I was one of half a million babies who were adopted in the 50s, 60s and 70s – most of us the children of unmarried mothers.
Evelyn’s shame meant she kept my birth a secret for almost 40 years.
Meanwhile, I’d grown up knowing no more than my parents, Margaret and David, did about how my life had started.
From being tiny, the fact that I was adopted – as were my two younger brothers, who both came from different families – was just a part of our family’s narrative. Mum and Dad always said they’d be supportive if, once I turned 18, I wanted to trace my birth parents, but it took until my late 30s for me to want to.
My parents adopted because of their own unexplained infertility.
They’d got a call from the matron of a mother and baby home in Leeds, inviting them to meet a little girl. The instant Dad held me, I fell asleep in his arms – so, it was a done deal.
All they knew were basic details: my birth name Mary Lucia, my mother’s surname, Ryan. She’d trained as a nurse and, in 1956, had travelled from Ireland to work at a hospital in Yorkshire and gave birth to me in Leeds.
As a child, I filled in the gaps with fantasies – I was a princess, or the love child of a sailor. As I got older, those
musings turned darker. Was I the product of rape or incest?
It wasn’t until 1994 that I put my name on an adoption contact register.
The birth of my own children had stirred up emotions.
When Daniel was born in 1986, it was the first time I’d seen my own features reflected back at me. The thought of having to give him away appalled me. I felt pity for my birth mother.
Gazing at newborn Ellie in 1990 made me feel sorry for my younger self and realise I’d never got over being separated from my mother. It hit me so hard, I needed counselling to get me through it.
By the time I had Kit in 1995, it struck me that, although I made my living writing crime fiction, I still hadn’t solved the mystery of my own past.
So, I got hold of my adoption papers, which told me Evelyn’s name and where she came from.
Telling my parents, the anxiety on Dad’s face was clear. Mum reassured him then, as she did when the charity I’d registered with rang to say Evelyn wanted to write to me.
We exchanged a couple of letters before Evelyn asked to fly over to Manchester from Ireland to meet me – she’d returned there, eventually marrying my father and having seven more children. Tragically, he’d died in 1985, so I never knew him.
I wasn’t ready, so Evelyn and I continued to write.
Meanwhile, she also wrote to Mum:
How had I slept as a baby? Had I fussed over food? Was I scared of the dark?
Mum told me that Evelyn’s letters always included thanks. In turn, Mum told Evelyn of the joy I’d brought her. The compassion between them was heartwarming.
A year later, I travelled to Ireland to meet Evelyn.
Before I left, I’d handed my parents a letter, telling them how much I loved them. When Evelyn said Mum had called the previous evening to wish her luck, I felt those sentiments even more keenly.
In the following years, I visited Ireland many times. My partner, Tim, and our children came too – I met various brothers, sisters and cousins.
Meanwhile, Mum and Evelyn kept up their correspondence. Finally, in 2001, Evelyn asked if she could meet her.
My parents took Evelyn on a tour of my life – the schools I’d attended, the house we’d previously lived in.
I knew nothing of the arrangements that were made five years later for Mum and Dad to stay with Evelyn for my 50th birthday in 2006. So, when they arrived together, I was shocked. But they looked so at ease, it’s a sight that still moves me when I remember it.
After the party, Dad told me he felt as though he’d found a whole new family of his own.
Sadly, we never all met again. Dad died in 2013, and although several of my siblings came to his funeral, Evelyn was too ill. By then, she’d been diagnosed with motor neurone disease.
This took her from us in summer 2017, followed by my mum, who died of heart disease two months later. I’m still grieving for them all.
Now, at 62, I can feel this pain in a pure and uncomplicated way, and that’s thanks to the way they conducted themselves, which determined I, ‘their’ daughter, should never feel torn.