The story it has taken me 26 years to write (plus a box of tissues & some vodka tonics)

part three

Wednesday. In the adult world, commonly known as ‘hump day.’ The day that is where happiness creeps in as you are on the downhill side of the week.

Wednesday. The day I was going to be my leaving my son. Relinquishing him for adoption. Saying goodbye. Forever. Just a regular Wednesday then. It definitely felt like I was going downhill.

I didn't sleep the night before. How could I? I had a mere few hours left with my son and a world of things — knowledge, family lore, random facts about me, telling him how much I loved him — that I needed to impart. I told him to always be kind. Hold doors open for women, no matter what their age. Don’t talk back to your parents. Remember to use the indicator on your car, as people who didn’t use it when driving made me crazy.

I asked him if he had any input as to what type of parents he wanted me to choose for him, but all I got was a sigh, and a squeeze of my finger that his little fist was wrapped around. I took that as a sign he’d leave it with me, I'd gotten us this far. So I continued with my litany. Read lots of books. Piles of them. The first girl who breaks your heart, oh — I just banked some hugs and kisses with him for that moment. Music, listen to lots of it. Walk on the beach, be amazed by the world. Never settle. Always ask questions so you learn more. Be polite, be warm, take the parts that were the best of me and then go learn the rest from your parents and your family. I said much more than that, but some things are just between us.

And I told him, again, that he should never, EVER think he was given away, but he was being given to. It was love that brought us to this moment. Not the fact that I didn’t want him, but I wanted him to have so much.

At this point, between crazy nurses aides, family members who wanted to keep the baby, and my heart that was telling me I couldn't let him go (how could I? He was a part of me, the very best part of me.) and my head telling me that if I really loved him, I would let him go, I recall looking outside at the sky, the sun and feeling truly, dreadfully alone. But I had also made my peace with the decision that my son was going to be placed up for adoption, so I was just hormonal, I was telling myself TO PULL IT TOGETHER.

The entire drama about getting my son baptised had left me on the outs with God, so it wasn't like we were going to have a chat about this, so I would feel less alone, and more sure in my choice. My parents had both made their opinions known. It is quite hard to talk to your friends about this, even though they have been there the whole time. You can’t take a family poll when you have kept it from all of them, even in my frayed state I knew that much. Then I looked at him again, and I knew. Deep down, I knew. I looked out the window and wondered where his parents were, and how long it would be before my son became theirs.

And then, I cried. And then — since God and I had fallen out, I decided to steal. In for a penny, in for a pound. I took from the bassinet two of the tiny diapers he would wear that were stored on it. I changed the little white wrap around shirt he was wearing, so I could keep the one he had on, the white cotton one that had his delicious scent all over it. I dressed him in a new one from the bassinet stock. Then looking at the bassinet, I saw there were more blankets on there too. So I took the one he was in, and swaddled him in another. And I hid my pilfered goods — soon to be the only physical reminder I had of him — and sat back, quietly pleased with myself for my thievery. And then I told my son to never, ever steal.

I am sure there are papers I signed at some point with Catholic Charities regarding the adoption. I honestly can’t recall signing any in the hospital (nor can I recall eating, or showering, or anything that didn’t involve being with my son, or making decisions about him.) I’d gone into laser like focus. Survival mode. Focus on what needs to get done. One foot in front of another. Blah blah blah.

The plan — actually, the only plan — the agency doesn't like to leave things like the transport of newborns between random parties to chance, had been explained to me many times. You can't deviate from it, or even ask to sign the form in blue pen rather than black, as I remember. Besides, I’d already gone rogue on them with this whole being freaked out by Limbo / needing to have my son baptised thing. (Sister Charlotte, where ever you are, you should get bonus points for scaring the bejesus out of me.) I lived my life for some reason in fear of babies and unbaptised people and Limbo. I think it was probably the concept that (to quote ‘Hotel California’) ‘you can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave.’ For those lucky enough to have escaped Sister Charlotte’s continual fire & brimstone lecture on Limbo, or not to have been raised a Catholic (or bonus, an Irish Catholic — they bathe in stuff like this. Absolutely love it.) it didn’t sound like anyplace you really wanted anyone to go.

You could pray yourself out of purgatory, or others could on your behalf, but Limbo was the Official Cul-de-Sac of Hell. One entry, no exit. And Sister Elise, my third grade teacher, loved this subject even more than Sister Charlotte (Kind of makes sense. Sister Charlotte kept statues of small dachshund dogs on her desk, and had one or two, and loved them. Slight glimmer of the human under the habit.) Sister Elise had a paddle hanging on the wall next to her desk, and her favourite phrase was ‘I am going to whale your tail.’ Merely asking about how to keep people from Limbo was enough to make her hand twitch in the direction of the paddle. I stayed mum, but the fear of this clearly stayed with me, as we have seen.

Now that we are all caught up in the theology that I had completely ignored until I suddenly was worried about it affecting my son (and have ignored since) I have to stop putting off the inevitable part of the story (hence my loose theological lesson). The part where I relinquish my son.

Relinquish, give up, pass over, release, turn over, give, give away, foreswear, renounce….choose a word. Legally, that is what I was doing. All the words are horrible, and suggest negativity to me, yet while in my head I knew I was most likely creating a family, if not adding to one. In reality, I was breaking my heart in half, and sending part of my heart into the world, hoping it would have the life I knew he deserved. But I was cutting the heart strings, so I wouldn’t be connected anymore, wouldn’t know if I was right or not. This was more than a leap of faith. This was…..(feel free to suggest a word. I have yet, in 26 years, to find one.)

I was dressed, my mother had come to pick me up and take me home. I had my stolen baby goods in my bag. I was sitting on the edge of the bed holding my son, and a nurse came in and told me it was time to take him back to the nursery. I had never made the trip there since Sunday evening when my son was born. He was always with me. And why would I? To watch all the happy families and friends gaze joyfully through the window and point to their pink or blue bundle that would soon go home with them, and start new lives together? To remind myself that my story wouldn’t end that way? I was searingly aware of this — it felt like every fiber of my being was tingling and twitching the past few days, I could hear the time clock countdown music from the TV show ‘Jeopardy’ in my head, even when I slept. Time, which I had spent my life trying to speed up — I wanted to be old enough to drive a car, travel, go out, go to university, do stuff, I suddenly wanted to slow to the pace of cold treacle being poured. But Time was having none of it. Apparently it missed my memo.

Like a surreal procession of people following a person you don't want to startle, or looking as neurotic as a room full of long tail cats in a room full of rockers, my mother, the nurse, and I walked towards the nursery. I led us, carrying my son. There was a complete hush as we went past the nurses’ station, yet I was aware of everyone’s eyes on me — it felt like they were watching someone go to death row. I remember seeing pity on their faces, or interest, as if they were wondering….what was going to happen? How would this end? They were frozen mid-action, afraid to move, like I was a ticking bomb and with one quick movement BAM! I’d take the baby and run.

The squeak of the nurse’s shoes and the dodgy wheel on the bassinet were the only noises, the soundtrack to our morose procession. I put my head down, trying to shield myself and my son behind my long veil of hair, as if we could become invisible then. I mentally begged for someone to immediately come onto the floor having triplets so everyone would move and stop looking at us. No such luck. I tried to remember that this long, horrible walk had a flip side, and soon some lovely couple would have a baby to love, adore, dream for, protect, and end their nightmare of childlessness. As I turned into the nursery, I clearly recall thinking that karma really needed to work on the balance…..that my nightmare had to occur so some couples’ nightmare could stop.

The nurse put the bassinet where it needed to be, and the nurse told me to put my son in it. Much like the nurses’ station we'd processed pass, the nursery staff were all reverently quiet, statue-still, bathed in the harshness of hospital lighting, but initially all given haloes by the magic of my contacts interacting with tears welling in my eyes. With tears now cascading from my eyes yet again (where on earth did all these tears come from?) I hugged him, told my son how much I loved him, that this was for him, and when he got bigger, if he ever wanted to find me, my door would always be open. I whispered all this to him, and then leaned over and put him in his bassinet. I slowly peeled back each of his little fingers from the fist that had been attached to my right index finger almost from the moment I first held him. I looked, closed my eyes like my mind was an old camera developing an image, and turned and started to walk away.

Then my son started to cry, which was that horrible, slightly hysterical baby crying that you don't know what it means. He had not cried the whole several days he had been with me, except for more of a yell, once, when I was adjusting the bottle and how dare I take his food away? So the noise was a surprise, and cut me deeper than anything I had ever known. It was a visceral reaction, as if someone had driven a knife into me. I turned around, picked him up, and just like that, he stopped.

So I did a great inhale, more aware than ever that it felt like the eyes of thousands were on me — even the families outside the glass viewing the new additions to their friends or families lives were watching now, like people looking at a crash site, unable to look away, but knowing they were witnessing something that didn't’ involve them and wondering what was going on and what carnage was there from the crash.

I bent over, and placed him in the bassinet again. I remember tracing his lips with my finger, which looked so sweet, and he had just let out a sigh as I placed him down. I turned, again, and began walking away.

Apparently cutting the heartstrings takes a few hours for the surgery to work, because he began to cry again, and I felt the pain again. Like phantom limbs, we had phantom strings attaching us to each other. I rushed back and grabbed him, aware at this point that I couldn't do this all day, that at some point I would have to go. I decided to sit in the rocker and try to soothe him, maybe to sleep, so I could sneak out and keep him from crying. I’d held him and talked to him incessantly for days, being left to lie on his own probably felt strange. What am I talking about, the whole thing was strange. Surreal. Unreal. He could probably feel the eyes of everyone on us, the silence, the waiting. Right. Time to do this. I stood up, walked back over to the bassinet again, and placed him in it. Hidden by the veil of my hair, I told him again I loved him, and to be brave and strong and wonderful. I kissed him. Then I stood, turned, and walked toward the door, and my mother.

And he started crying again. I hesitated. The nurse came up to me and quietly said ‘It is ok, you can go. He won't even remember you.’

With the phrase ‘he won't even remember you’ ringing in my ears, ripping at my heart, and making my dizzy and want to vomit, I hardly remember getting to the car. My mother was asking me if we should pick up Chinese food for us to have at home for lunch, and then I could rest, as she had to go out on an appointment for a bit. The surrealness of the situation hit me again. The horror of it hit me. The reality of it hit me. I had walked away from my child, and I wouldn’t see him again.

What kind of monster was I? Who did this? What had happened to me in the last four days? And how would I get through this?

Believe it or not, the story doesn't end here. But today’s part does. Twenty six years later, it is startling how visceral that pain is, and how it always goes to the same place, the place where my heart broke.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email me at kristine.kirby@btinternet.com. I appreciate all feedback.