Discovering oneself

Skeletons lurk in many family closets but bringing them out has only enriched life for Blenheim woman Lynda Moses.

It has taken the best part of 20 years, but Lynda now knows who her birth mother is, discovered a close friend was really an aunt, and met her birth father, who introduced her to two new brothers, a sister, a grandmother, three nieces and a nephew.

Lynda shared her story with members of the Marlborough Christian Women's Communications International last week. After her talk, other women approached her with their own stories of giving children up for adoption or growing up as an adopted child.

Lynda says her first parents will always be Jenny and Ron who raised her with two adopted brothers in the McKenzie Country. When New Zealand's adoption laws were re-written in 1985 the couple encouraged their children to learn who their birth parents were. At first none of them bothered.

"I had sort of felt ... it was a betrayal," Lynda says.

She grew up, got married and moved with her husband, Don, to Rangiora. There she made friends with an older woman who became a trusted mentor.

When the Moses family moved to Auckland in 1990 they went to pastoral care classes.

It was at one of those where Lynda heard a woman speak about the positive experience of finding her own birth parents.

When Don suggested Lynda considered tracking hers down, she found the idea unsettling but eventually started her search.

Her birth mother wasn't receptive when contact was made; a phone call first, and then a letter to the older woman's parents.

Then the female friend in Rangiora phoned and Lynda learned she was her birth mother's older sister.

The young mum had been only 17 and no one knew she was pregnant until she just went into labour one day. A public health nurse was called, baby Lynda was quickly whisked away for adoption and no one in the family ever spoke of the incident again.

Lynda accepts her birth mother wants to keep it that way. She has developed a close friendship with her birth father, though.

He had been harder to trace but was eventually located in Australia. He was surprised to learn his former girlfriend had been pregnant when their relationship ended.

Lynda and Don waited until DNA tests showed a "99.9996 per cent chance" the Australian man was Lynda's father and then they crossed the Tasman for a meeting.

"Nerve-racking for them both" is Lynda's description of that, but it ended up being "a fantastic experience".

Her father and his daughter later visited New Zealand to meet Lynda and Don's three adult children and a grandson.

Family resemblances were noted and when they met Lynda's adoptive parents, more new friendships were forged.

Lynda says finding her birth father and getting to know that side of her family has deepened, not weakened, the relationship with her adoptive parents.

"It's like I am stepping out of the shadows."

IDENTITY

New Zealand was the first country in the British Empire to make adoption a legal process with its Adoption of Children Act 1881.

Drawn up to benefit children deprived of their natural parents, it allowed adoptees' birth names and the names of their birth parents to be included on their birth certificates, and for adoptive parents and birth parents to know each other's identity. But illegitimacy was seen as a threat to public morality, reports Keith Griffith who wrote the books NZ Adoption - History and Practice and Right to Know Who You Are.

To ensure the children of unmarried mothers carried no shame, legal walls of secrecy were created with the Adoption Act 1955.

It followed the theory that adopted children brought up by adoptive families would grow up as if born to them. Suppressing the children's dual origins would surely protect that bond.

Challenges to that theory led to new laws under the Adult Adoption Information Act 1985.

The majority of adult adoptees in stranger adoptions have since sought and received their birth information.

- The Marlborough Express