My Story

I'll start from when I was 12 years old so it will make a bit more sense with my reasoning.

When I was 12 and my sister was 15 she had a steady boyfriend by whom she
feel pregnant and when my parents found out they were furious. They
insisted she had an abortion and made sure she split up from her
boyfriend despite them wanting to keep the baby. He was working so
could have afforded to support my sister and their baby.

Fast forward 6 years and I got myself into a serious relationship resulting
in us getting engaged. Unfortunately he changed slowly becoming
possessive and jealous so although he didn't physically abuse me he did
emotionally. I couldn't look at another man let alone talk to any I
knew, except his friends whom he trusted, without him kicking off. At
the time I lost count of the times I was accused of flirting or
fancying other men. In late 1980 we split up basically because his
jealousy got the better off him and shortly afterwards I knew I was
pregnant. I knew it would be a waste of telling my ex boyfriend he was
the father as he wouldn't have believed me.

I kept quiet long enough so that my parents couldn't force me to have an abortion like
they did with my sister. It had crossed my mind once but I couldn't go
through with it as I wanted my baby. I was working so could afford to
keep my baby financially as well emotionally wanted to keep him.

When my parents found out they went ballistic as it was too late for me to
have an abortion so they were adament he was to be adopted. Nothing was
discussed nor did I agree with them and they went ahead with making
arrangements. The first time I saw a case worker was after I had my son
on the 3rd August 1981 and I admitted that I didn't want him adopted,
that it was my parents who were adament about this. She promised to put
a stop to the adoption and that she would support my decision. However
she did persuade me to let my son go into foster care until I got
sorted and not to see him in case I decided adoption was the best
option. My one act of defiance was to go and see him in the nursery and
to hold him for a while which I have always been glad I did. I was in
hospital for about a week as I was ill so asked to see my son again but
was told I was too ill to see him. Later I found out he had already
been moved to another hospital so I couldn't have seen him anyway.

The weeks went by and I still wanted to keep my son but my parents started
putting more pressure on me as the case worker had told them how I
felt. They used lines like I couldn't work and look after my son, I
couldn't afford child care, they would make sure I would lose my job,
that I would be homeless and that if I was living on the streets my son
would be taken away from me. When he was 6 weeks old I was told it was
too late to put a stop to the adoption which I naively believed so that
was it.

For the next 23 years my son wasn't talked about although I never forgot about him. I got married on the 20th November
1993 although unfortunately we haven't had any children. In early 1999
I had a falling out with my family as my sister had told some
particularly nasty lies about me and my husband. In the August my son
started searching for me and found my family quite quickly. However by
this time I had moved so they quite honestly told him they didn't know
where i was.

In late 2001 I got back in contact with my parents as I felt it was time to try and bridges as they are elderly
and frail. I still refuse to have anything to do with my sister as she
still tells lies about me. In August 2004 my husband and I thought it
would be fun to join Genes Reunited
which is a British based site for people researching there family
trees. After I had put all the details that I could I realized my
details had been entered by my son as he was a member using the names I
had given him. I emailed him without a second thought then panicked
about it. He responded quite quickly and we have been in reunion since.
I was very upset to find out that my parents hadn't told me that they
had contact with him or let him know where I was, Their excuse was that
they didn't know if my husband knew about my son yet my sister had told
him about my son years ago. All I can assume is that my sister didn't
tell my parents what she had done. However because of their silence my
son thought I didn't want to know him and that my family were covering
for me though he knows that isn't true now.