Having a Baby

Have I ever found myself in a situation I considered hopeless? Oh yes! Late in 1955, I became pregnant. I was 21 but a very young 21. And, as an additional handicap, I was then a Catholic. Of course, abortion wasn’t legal then but even when it was in 1977 and I was offered it because of my age, I chose not to take it. When the Catholic Church gets you early, you stay “got” for life even if you don’t call yourself a Catholic any more.

So, here I was, pregnant and unmarried, and this was in the days when you hide this kind of thing from your family. I went to a Home for Unmarried Mothers {yes, honestly, it WAS called that} and there is spent the time of my pregnancy. We were living under strict rules and I remember being reprimanded because I took a letter addressed to me out of the new mail. Oh no, we had to wait until the mail was ritually handed out to us over breakfast …

Anyway, my son was born in 1956. He was an “apparently normal male child” {this is what it said on my chart} who weighed in at 7 pounds, eleven ounces and , it was assumed, that I would put him up for adoption. Now, notice, I was never asked; I was told. If he had been taken from me at birth, I would probably have let him go, but I was told that I had six weeks before the papers HAD to be signed and so I kept putting it off and putting it off.

I remember, I seemed to walking around in a fog. I didn’t want to give him up but I really couldn’t see how I could work AND keep him. No one offered me any other choices or even mentioned any way I could get help and, looking back on it, I didnt have the sense to ask the right questions. Until one day, a priest casually mentioned, almost in passing, that there was a program where my child could be looked after until I got on my feet and I could arrange to have him with me.

It was literally like someone turning on a light or like the sun coming out from behind clouds. Color and light came back into my life again. It took me a little less than a year to find a job, an apartment where he could be with me and day care for him. During that time he stayed in a children’s home where I paid for him, saw him evey day and had him with me every weekend.

In 1956, it wasn’t usual for unmarried women to keep their children. I had to be quiet about it where I taught and I was always afraid of being found out and fired for “moral turpitude.” I am not joking here, folks.

My older son is now happily married and with two sons of his own. I am proud of the fact that I didn’t give him up when it would have been very easy to do so.