Message from Sr. Susan McDonald to adoptees

Message from Sr. Susan McDonald to adoptees

Before we take the trip to Vietnam, I would like to give you some information, which you may already have, regarding search for birth parents, and in particular, search for birth mothers. I would prefer to have this conversation with you face to face--as I believe some of the information can be quite difficult. I encourage you to share this and talk it over with someone near and dear to you. It will be helpful for you to remember the situation in Vietnam 26+ years ago, which thankfully, is not the situation now. 

Because Vietnam had been at war for over fifty years, first with China, then France, then the USA, the total economy of the country was in shambles. There was a refugee society in place, that is, many families no longer had the rice farms they once had, nor the jobs they were used to: bombs and fighting had displaced persons from their homes and families, and many Vietnamese families were on the move. It was an incredibly stressed situation where countless persons were no longer able to care for themselves and the government did not have resources for social services. 

Vietnam didn't always have orphanages. Ordinarily orphans had been assumed into an extended family. However, as the years of war progressed, families were caring for all the orphans they could manage. The International Child Welfare Conference was held in January 1975 in Saigon. Because of this, we were able to obtain from the International Red Cross, WHO, and several government and international agencies, statistics on children in Vietnam at that time: The infant mortality rate was estimated to be one in every ten births. In orphanages, the mortality rate among infants approximated 90%. There were 14 orphanages in South Vietnam in 1955. By 1973 this grew to 134 registered orphanages and by 1975, almost every village had an orphanage. In 1973 it was estimated that there were over 879,000 orphans in South Vietnam alone. This included 555,000 military orphans (children whose parents were killed in the military), and 324,000 civilian orphans. That is, 324,000 children who became orphans due to parents being killed in the fighting. 

By 1975 this increased--just in two years, from 555,000 military orphans, to 739,000 military orphans registered with the Ministry of Veterans. There were no new figures of civilian orphans, however, the ministry estimated that every family in South Vietnam was caring for at least one orphan. The Ministry of Social Welfare estimated in 1975 that of the civilian orphans, 150,000 were living with one parent; another 150,000 had lost both parents but were living with relatives or friends, and over 24,000 orphans were in institutional orphanages, some of these children having a parent living, others no family members alive, and still others, the minority, were left with no information whatsoever of the child's family or friends. It was this minority of the orphanage population, children with no known family, whom we cared for. This is to say, that, at any one time, in a large orphanage of 70 children, perhaps three or four children in the orphanage would have no known family nor anyone who knew this child. These three or four children had been born to very stressed mothers. The mother put her baby near a church, a hospital, a market, near an orphanage, or beside a roadway, sometimes wrapped in newspaper or in a towel. The baby was left where someone would find him or her. Often this baby was found and was taken to an orphanage. 

From time to time we traveled through the southern provinces, left medication and food for children and gave immunizations to the children in the orphanages. If there were infants with no known families in an orphanage, and it was clear that a mother of a baby could not be found, we took these infants back to Saigon to our nurseries. It was not a matter of a mother not loving or not wanting a baby. Due to war and extreme poverty, a mother had no idea where to turn for assistance, was unable to care for her baby, and this was her hope at giving her infant a chance to live.

I believe that these women would have kept their children if there was any way they could have found that possible. It wasn't a matter of children not being loved or not being wanted--it was a matter of the very harsh realities of war. If a birth mother had inquired about you, the personnel at orphanages would have been able to get in touch with us and we would have seen to it that you were returned. However, this did not happen--and I think you would have to go to a country that had been at war for many many years to understand the great difficulties this presented to the population. The government of South Vietnam was putting most of its resources into fighting a war. Persons who ended up with the least of the country's budget were the orphans. Children in government orphanages were allocated what would amount to the cost of a single stick of bread per month per child. There was not enough money allocated for government orphanages, and some non- governmental orphanages to buy formula to feed infants nor finances to hire needed child care workers. Older children were rationed a small amount of rice, and infants were given the water strained from the rice as their baby formula. There were some vitamins in this rice water, however, babies soon became malnourished and ill with this diet, and the mortality rate in orphanages was very high. I visited an orphanage filled with toddlers and infants, and, just two weeks after, returned to the same orphanage and found it totally empty due to a measles epidemic. The infants, due to insufficient immunity and malnutrition, had succumbed to this disease, which in the USA is normally manageable, . In such cases orphanage personnel washed down the cribs and floors and didn't take in children until they believed the germ was no longer present. 

During my time in Saigon I cared for about 700 children, and of these 700, about 45 children died due primarily to effects secondary to malnutrition. We bought an orphanage plot. However, an amazing 650 of the children survived and are in homes all over the globe. Some of you amazing people are going on this trip, others of you are parents of these children. The Vietnamese courts required that each child of unknown parents be given a mother's name--sometimes a father's name, a date of birth and place of birth. Also the child was given a Vietnamese name. All of these names were made up--not to fool anyone--it was just that it was impossible for the Vietnamese government to process one little baby after another with unknown written in all of the blanks. You were precious and your identity needed established. Your adoptive parents were given a birth certificate or birth judgment for you--provided either by an orphanage or the Vietnamese court or both. These papers provided you with documentation needed for visas, medical records, passport. However, in most cases, these records will not provide you with a means of tracing who your birth mother was. No one knew. In Vietnam you may meet persons who say they can find your birth mother and bring you to your extended family. It would be a win win proposition: you could find your family and a poor family in Vietnam would have a rich American relatives. Please keep this in mind and be very cautious. Although it is not possible to locate your birth mother--or sisters or brothers if you have any--(we could not locate them--if we could have that could have been the option chosen for you)--there are many others like you who also have no means of tracing original birth families. You are not alone. As I said, there were far over 3,000 of the almost 200,000 orphans who were in this situation. 

Rosemary Taylor had four nurseries in Saigon, so children were leaving every week or two to various homes around the world. These others you can claim as your large and wonderful extended family. All of you have the same beginning--and there is a wonderful family like network forming as each of you find one another. It is possible for you to connect with others who were in the nursery when you were, who were in Vietnam when you were and to open yourselves to the valuable and caring support of one another. For those of you who were adopted from nurseries in Saigon, under the administration of Rosemary Taylor, the group with whom I worked, the above information is applicable. I realize that Holt and perhaps other adoption agencies received infants from mothers who relinquished their children. And many of these agencies have support services to assist you in searching for your birth mother.