My Secret Pregnancy in the Sixties: A Blessing in Disguise

Back in 1967, I didn’t see any blessings in my horrific condition. I was attending an all girl’s catholic high school, 16 and secretly pregnant. Five months earlier during a romp in the hay, my boyfriend’s rubber broke. I don’t mean to make light of this. 

 Sex wasn’t playful nor an enjoyable event because it was so new and I was shrouded with guilt and shame, but up until then, I considered myself a good catholic girl. I knew that sex outside of marriage was a mortal sin. 

 Not one of my one thousand classmates at Regina Dominican High School ever got pregnant, that I knew of. I was a freak, an outcast, a leper, so I kept quiet pretending like nothing was wrong as my baby steadily grew.

 At the change of classes, I shuffled the corridors in a daze, clouded by the fear of being found out and of what would happen to me. I fastened my skirt together with looped rubber bands to accommodate my expanding belly. My uniform blazer helped to hide my thickening waist.  

 When the rubber bands couldn’t hold anymore, I just had to tell my parents.  Dad was very angry and ordered me to have an abortion. 

 Even though—I am sorry to say—I probably would have done anything to get out of the shame of this pregnancy; I suspected that the baby was just too big by now to consider such a thing.  To my relief, the doctor confirmed this. 

 So they sent me across the state border to hide at the Martha Washington Home for Unwed Mothers in Wisconsin until I could deliver the baby. 

 —from Sunlight on My Shadow

“As we stood outside the Home, with the trunk open and the items being gathered for my extended stay, my father took each one of my books, including my cherished white leather prayer book, and, using his Parker fountain pen, scratched my last name from the inside covers of each one. I would be referred to as Judy L. during my stay. Then, my father gave his last bit of advice, “You’ll forget about this, Judy, and you’ll never have to speak of it to anyone again. Later, you may get married, but there’s no reason to even mention this to your husband.”

 The plan sounded good to me—the best Band-Aid on a gushing wound of shame.

 So we told the nuns, my classmates, and family that I had a serious kidney disease and had to go live with an aunt to recuperate.  The saddest thing was that during the entire nine months I treated my pregnancy as a horrific growth that I just wanted to go away. I did not know any better.

 But that all changed on the day she was born:

 —from Sunlight on My Shadow

 “… out it all came. I couldn’t see anything going on below, but I felt the thickness release. I heard a sputter and a gurgle and then a disturbing silence. “There should be a cry or something,” I thought. The baby was out. Then at last, after what seemed like many long minutes…..a loud wail.

 I could not have anticipated what happened next. I started crying at the sound of its insistent voice. My body softened with a spiritual connection and love for this little human. Although my head knew a baby was in there, my heart didn’t know it until I heard it cry. 

 Her cries were a call for me. I wanted her close to my skin, to swallow her up to my chest and keep her warm and safe. My heart ached for her. We had been through this together. But I was ashamed that I wanted her. I had no claims. 

 They didn’t say anything about her, like, “Oh, what a beautiful baby!” You know, the normal delivery-room banter. Just quietly doing their work. I suppose they thought they were protecting me. I suppose they thought I didn’t care, since I was giving her away. But I cared. I cared way too much. 

 Although the staff said the birth mothers could hold the babies, I never did, because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to let her go. After all, she was lined up for adoption and I didn’t want to jeopardize the plan. 

 But each day after her birth, I went to the nursery to see her. I stood outside the window and looked in.  

 OH she was exquisite. She had dark hair pasted to her head and brown eyes, plump rosey cheeks and unlike most newborns, creamy smooth skin. I was so proud of her and, yet I felt like I had no right.  

 On the day they took her away, I was looking out my bedroom window and saw the social worker’s car pull out of the parking lot. 

I ran down to the second floor and peered through the triangular wire cross-hairs of the nursery window. Sure enough, her little crib was empty. She was speeding away in Cavanaugh’s car. Gone. I wouldn’t ever see her again. 

I pressed my hands on the nursery window and pushed my cheek against the cold slick surface. My knees felt weak as I crumbled with long hard sobs that erupted deep within my gut. 

 My baby was gone. I let her go. I never held her. I signed the papers that gave her to strangers. They didn’t even tell me she was going today. Maybe I could have said good-bye.

 I wondered who would be feeding my baby tonight. I took big chunks of my hair and pulled it slowly through my hands. Icy fingers of grief stabbed at my heart and gut. I feared I would never be okay again… drowning in hopeless sorrow.”

 But, many years later, when she was 26 years old, I hired a search expert to find her.

 I was grateful that Karen opened her arms to hug me hello. I had to control myself because I wanted to smother her with hugs and kisses, pull her into my lap and wrap my arms around her and blubber like a baby. I felt like she had risen from the dead. She looked so familiar.

 She had beautiful green eyes and dark lashes, and a smile that was all teeth—just like everyone else in our family.  She was a nurse and married to a good man. I found out that— YES! She did go to fine parents and had had a good life. Oh how healing this was for me. 

 Today, instead of thinking about how I messed up, back in 1967, I realized that I had done a great thing. I had given life to a beautiful child. And in that I found forgiveness for what I had done. The shame and grief has eased. I have found joy and sunlight in the shadows of regret. My birth-daughter Karen was a blessing in disguise. The funny thing is that my mom always called me her blessing in disguise. Since she was 45 when she had me, she wasn’t looking forward to starting over with a baby. But when I was a teen I was able to help her when she became sick and she often grabbed my hand and patted it and looked at me with her deep blue eyes and said,”Judy, you are my blessing in disguise.”

 Judy Liautaud is the author of the memoir “Sunlight on My Shadow” a birth mother’s journey from secrecy to renewal. The book has over 200 top star reviews on Amazon.com.  See the book trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLTe10ZmhhU

Judy is also the author of several children’s educational books including Times Tables the Fun Way and owner of City Creek Press, Inc.

Get the book here: Amazon