We shared this dark secret

from: The Guardian

Ros was 18 when she gave up the only baby she ever had for adoption. She went on to marry the father, their lives welded together by mutual regret. Kate Hilpern reports

Saturday November 10, 2007
The Guardian

Ros and David Brawn made a decision when they got married - there would be no children. "We'd already had a baby in 1968 when we were 18. Because adoption was the norm for young unmarried mothers in those days, I had to give that baby away," says Ros. "It was a decision I would quickly come to regret every single day of my life and I felt very strongly that if our son was ever to come and look for me when he became an adult, it would be as if I'd be saying to him, 'You weren't convenient so we gave you away, but this child was convenient so we kept it.' "

Now 57, she and her husband are not sure it was the right path to have taken. "We've lacked the stability and focus I see in our friends who have children - and that's affected our marriage. I suppose you could say the marriage feels less grounded," says David.

He and Ros are one of many couples who gave up a baby for adoption in the 1950s, 60s or 70s and later went on to marry. Like most of these couples, not a day of their relationship has been unaffected by their loss. It is a very particular kind of loss. Unlike the death of a child, it cannot be grieved. Out there somewhere is your child speaking their first words, tying shoelaces for the first time, taking their first driving lessons, even having your first grandchild. And unlike people who lose a child through adoption but don't stay together, this is a loss that is more difficult to justify - to others, to yourselves and to your child. Even if you dare to hope for a reunion, will your offspring still want to know you once they learn that they could surely have been kept?

"Twenty-five years ago, when we started a charity for adults affected by adoption, we used to get the odd case where a set of birth parents had gone on to marry and I can remember being really surprised," says Pam Hodgkins, founder and chief executive of Norcap. "But it soon became apparent that it's quite common. Of the birth mothers that come to us now, I'd say 15%-20% stayed with the father."

Not for these men and women the secrecy of having given up a baby for adoption that was - and in many cases still is - carried to the grave, kept even from subsequent partners. In fact, for Ros, the threat of having to live such an existence is one of the reasons she married David. "I think at least part of the reason was because we shared this dark, painful secret. It was so dark and painful that even we didn't talk about it. The thought of having to open up to - or even keep it from - someone new was just too big," she says.

David adds: "We shared this huge mountain of guilt that nobody else could have possibly understood."

Trauma, explains Hodgkins, is as likely to draw people together as tear them apart. For other couples, going on to marry was a way of proving their parents wrong. "In many cases, their parents had dismissed their relationship as meaningless because they were so young. I've also come across couples where the birth mother was under age when the child was conceived and she and her boyfriend were split up by their parents threatening to prosecute him for unlawful sex. They got back together as soon as it was lawful in order to show their parents that the pregnancy wasn't something ghastly and criminal, but an expression of their love."

Julia Feast, policy research and development consultant for the British Association for Adoption & Fostering (BAAF), adds: "Just because people had a baby didn't mean there wasn't a genuine love for each other - far from it in many cases. It was only the stigma and shame attached to having a baby outside marriage in that era that meant they had to give the baby up."

While a number of couples have inevitably split up somewhere down the line, others have lasted the distance. Hilary and Tony Whaley, now 58 and 60, met just after her 16th birthday in 1965. "Tony was 18 and I knew immediately it was for keeps," says Hilary. "It sounds bizarre but within four days, he'd proposed to me and I said yes - although neither of us wanted to get married for some time."

When Hilary became pregnant, Tony's mother simply said, "Of course you'll have it adopted." Hilary was sent to an aunt in the country where, a week after the birth, the horror hit her. "When the taxi arrived to pick up our baby, Sally, it was like being slammed into a wall at 60mph. I was given a cigarette to calm me down, then I was sent straight home."

Tony was waiting at the station. "Hilary had begged me to come and see the baby, but I was put under a lot of pressure at home not to visit," he remembers. "I was a very young 19-year-old, and a lot of it went over my head."

Two years later, they got married and before long, they had two sons. "I can remember feeling overjoyed when I became pregnant, but relieved that I had boys," says Hilary. "If either had been a girl, I think I'd have felt the loss of Sally even more acutely."

"I probably smothered them in the first few months," she admits, although she couldn't bring herself to breastfeed either of them. "There was no logic to it - just that I hadn't been able to do it for her, so I wouldn't do it for them."

In their mid-20s, Hilary and Tony hit a bumpy patch. "It was partly because I realised there was more to life than being a wife and mother - I wanted a career too - and partly because I started to blame Tony for Sally," admits Hilary. "I was hung up on the fact that Tony hadn't come to see her during that week at my aunt's. Looking back, I gave him a really hard time."

For a while, Hilary and Tony lived apart, but just as the experience of having Sally and the adoption had contributed to tearing them apart, it also helped to bring them back together. "I remember panicking about the thought of Sally finding us as anything but a united family. I also discovered in that time how much Tony really meant to me. I still don't know any other couple with a relationship as rock solid as ours."

Stephanie Asher, 71, experienced a similar urge to cling to her relationship with the father of the child she gave up, even though he was married to someone else and had three children.

She met Philip, 13 years her senior, in 1954 and fell head over heels for him, but when she got pregnant, they were both frightened - he of the implications for his marriage and she of her parents. "I was a 'nice' girl and these things didn't happen to nice girls. But to my surprise, my mother was very supportive, provided I agreed to adoption. Meanwhile, Philip didn't tell his wife."

Stephanie was unprepared for the gut-wrenching grief that followed: "It was like losing a limb. No, it was like my heart being wrenched out."

It became even more important to her to hang on to Philip, and seven years later, they set up home together and tried to have another child, one they would keep. But the years went on and nothing happened. "We even tried fertility treatment. I was heartbroken and, worse still, I felt I only had myself to blame. I believed it was my penance for giving up our baby, Tony. I know that Philip was sad too, although I think it wasn't quite as bad for him - he didn't have that sense of blame and he already had children."

Stephanie and Philip got married in 1973 on Tony's 17th birthday. "Doing it on that date meant a lot to both of us, although Philip never really talked about Tony. I think he felt guilty. I would like to have talked about him a lot, but I learned to keep my thoughts to myself. The one exception was when it got near to Tony's birthday. I had to voice my feelings then because they were so strong. But even then, Philip would just cry or say he didn't want to talk about it. Even though we had a very close relationship - he told me he loved me every day - I think he could have supported me more."

While Ros says she has never felt unsupported by David, she says her marriage has never felt "complete": "Because we never had children after we married, we were able to work in various parts of the world and lead an active social life. To others it seemed glamorous, but to me it was always very clearly a vain search for something to block out the pain."

Adopted people are almost always flabbergasted when they discover their parents are married, according to Norcap, and the Brawns' son, Bill, now 39 and living in Australia with his partner and three children, was no exception. Having sought out his birth mother last year, Bill was not altogether pleased to find his birth parents married and still together. "He needed to understand why he was given away and felt anger that David was not there throughout the pregnancy and his birth," explains Ros.

Since then, Ros has been out to see Bill several times, and as the relationship between them has blossomed, David - who has so far met Bill only once - admits he often feels left out. "We've always done everything together, so I feel wobbly when she's not here," says David. He and Ros have now rented a house in the same street as Bill - where they plan to spend much of their time - in the hope that he and Bill will get to know each other and make amends.

Despite the complications it has brought to their marriage, Ros feels relief that at last they are able to talk about their son. "We always found the adoption too difficult to talk about, so that whole area of our lives became a no-go area. In a way, I think that made other areas of our life no-go areas too. Now, we are becoming more open with each other," she says.

For Hilary and Tony's daughter, Sally, now 41 - with whom they were reunited in July - the news of marriage was also astonishing, though it has not proved to be an obstacle. "Far from it," says Hilary. "When she was met with the news that Tony and I were still together, she says she loved it."

Hilary decided to take advantage of the 2005 adoption legislation, which gives all birth relatives the right to an intermediary service that lets the grown-up adopted child know of their interest in making contact. By her own admission, she was possessive about it: "Tony hadn't been there when she was born, so I felt it was my search and little to do with him. I only wanted him to meet her after I had. Quite literally from the moment Sally was back in our lives, however, that feeling completely disappeared. I realised Tony was every bit as involved as me - as our two sons. In fact, she and our sons already tease each other regularly by email."

It was the 2005 legislation that prompted Stephanie to seek out her son too. "I don't think Philip would have done it but he wasn't going to stop me either," she says.

Last summer, she was informed that Tony had been located and that he had been thinking of contacting her himself. What's more, he was delighted to hear she had married his father. It was a bittersweet reunion, however, because Philip had died of lung cancer just seven months earlier. "The timing was awful. I am 100% sure that Philip would have been thrilled, despite his inability to talk about it," she says.

Today, Stephanie is in close contact with her 50-year-old son and his family: "I haven't just gained a son. He also has a lovely wife and I have three wonderful grandchildren. In many ways, it's as if all the upset and trauma of the past are now forgotten. I am literally bursting with love for all of them. We've decided to sell our respective houses and both move close to each other in Dorset. I wish more than anything that Philip could have been a part of all this. But I have learned over the years not to focus on regret, but instead to think about the positive."

Hilary and Tony feel similarly. "What's the point? All that matters is the space that was always left for Sally has now been filled," says Tony.

But David and Ros find it hard not to reflect on what might have been. "If we'd have kept Bill and thrown ourselves into the lives of parents, I think we would have been very different people and had a very different relationship," says David. "I try not to focus on that because I can't change it now - but it's hard not to."

Norcap - Adults Affected by Adoption, 01865 875000, www.norcap.org.uk