My story is, I'm a mum who lost her baby to forced adoption.
On behalf of the Australian people we say sorry to you, the mothers who were denied
knowledge of your rights, which means you could not provide informed consent.
I won't forget, I won't forgive and I can't accept the fact that they took my baby
and I never saw him grow up.
In December of 1969 I got a job as a governess on a property in Western
Queensland. I was a victim of pack rape and I wrote to my mum, told her the
situation and she said you can't come home. The people I was working for spoke
to the Bush Brothers, they're the Anglican traveling ministers and they found me the place at St Mary's.
In 1965 I found myself pregnant and became engaged because
I was pregnant and then was jilted three weeks before my
wedding. So with that I was sent to St Mary's home at Toowong and
stayed there until the birth of my son.
Some really tragic experiences happened here, the grief runs so deep that nothing
can really completely heal that but I think reaching out a hand in friendship
and support and acknowledging what they went through
and its deep impact means a lot to these women.
The garden means somewhere to go and reflect on what's happened but it's also
a bit of closure with the home. That's part of the story that we left behind.
It still impacts on us today, you might hear a song or you might see
something on the TV and it takes you back to that instant.
The way I have coped with life from the loss of my son is I have
separated the younger person that was me and her suffering, she never
recovered from that. So her suffering,
I sort of have divided my life into two pieces. I'm happily married.
I have two beautiful daughters and that life is all I could want it to be.
But when our lives mix then I'm faced with
all the things that she lost, she lost everything.
I went to the hospital, had him at about 2:30 in the morning. I vaguely remember
the clock in front of my face and they just took him straight away. I didn't see him
they just took him straight out of the ward. I asked to see him
and it was refused. I wouldn't have known that I had a son except
somebody came back and said that, "you had a son, a long skinny streak like
yourself, crop of black hair and the same crooked little fingers."
So for a long time afterwards I was looking for a baby with crooked fingers.
I was in the hospital for ten days. I refused to sign the consent form.
I kept asking to see him. I was told don't bother looking for him
you'll never find him and they told me the only way to get out of here is to
sign the consent form.
I have no medical records but I feel that I was drugged because I don't remember
his birth or the next five days. I just feel I was kept in a sedated state so
that I wouldn't cause any complications for them. Once I'd signed the consent
form with no guardian, no parent there, I was allowed to go down and see him
through a glass window and when I asked could I nurse him they said no you're
too upset go back to your room. So that was my one memory.
I can still see his face today.
The garden is a part of a journey, the end of the journey will be when I get my
name on a birth or death certificate and they'll have a leaf that has my name and
my son's birth name on it. And to me that's the first time in 53 years I've
seen our names linked together. So no more secrecy and
no more lies. That little leaf means the world to me.
1993 we met for the first time and I met him at the airport
and in my mind I'm expecting the baby that I've never seen and out walks a
man in front of me. It's like really hard to accept mentally that transition from
baby to man and all I wanted to do is cling on to him and not let him go.
So yes, we've worked hard for the relationship that we have today.
We've lived through it, we look after each other, we've each other's back and
we fight together for everything that's still required.
The damage that they did to mothers and children and the extended families is ongoing.
It's not an incident that happened once and then you walked
away from it unscathed. It's a lifetime sentence.