WEBVTT - The Secret Son 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:09.080 Family Secrets as a production of I Heart Radio Baby, 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:21.959 It's Whole Baby, and the dog is just I pointed 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:25.440 out to him where I spent many many in afternoon 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:28.800 sitting out on that slab. Was at the concrete slab 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:32.240 with a cover over it and talking to the girls 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:37.080 listening to this transistor radios. Um what teenagers did back then, 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:41.200 talking about boys, talking about what seventeen year old girls 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:45.519 talk about seventeen magazine at the beach, almost Amazon to Papa's. 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.239 The only odd thing was all these teenagers were in 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:56.640 various stages of pregnancy, but we were chest girls. That's 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:01.640 Laura Angle recalling her time at a home for unweed mothers. Today. 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:04.160 Laura is a sixty eight year old mother and grandmother 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:06.960 who lives a full and contented life in San Diego. 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:11.280 She grew up in Boloxi, Mississippi, and describes herself as 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:15.360 an average child and teenager, a teenager who had a secret. 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:24.160 I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, the secrets 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:27.160 that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:34.240 and the secrets we keep from ourselves. I had a 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:38.600 family that was a very close, nice family. You know, 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.160 we were to church, and we did all the things 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:43.880 that normal families do. I was the only daughter. I 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:48.240 was the oldest, had three younger brothers. My mother had 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:50.600 a lot of issues. She was actually a secret in 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:55.200 her family. My mother was what I think. I'm another doctor, 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.840 but I think she was bipolar. I just knew instinctively 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:02.760 that just don't talk about mamma's moods and the weeks 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:05.800 that she would lay in bed crying. And I loved 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:10.040 my mother, but I don't think we were close at all. 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:14.080 I always don't like I wasn't enough with my mother 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:18.800 and actually became like the in between between my mother 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:21.880 and my grandmother, who lived next to our my father's mother. 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:26.000 When Laura was fifteen, she felt for a guy who 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:29.240 wasn't exactly the boy next door. He wasn't from Biloxi. 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.120 He had long hair, which was fairly new in the 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.120 mid nineteen sixties, and he didn't have a Southern accent. 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:38.160 He just said a different than a guy. He played 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.720 a guitar, and he and I became boyfriend and girlfriend 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:44.880 and a very young age. I guess it was like fifteen. 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.000 So by the time I was the summer that I 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:52.600 was turning seventeen. He and I broke up because he 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:54.760 was going on to college, he said, but he ended 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:59.160 up joining the army pretty soon after that attack. I 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:01.560 can imagine what a must have been like during that long, 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.960 hot Mississippi summer ticking by, especially for a girl who 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.560 had just turned seventeen. A girl was a troubled mother, 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.080 a girl who had a certain longing to get out, 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:15.960 though she might not even have known what that would mean. 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:19.720 Though Laura and her boyfriend had broken up, he kept 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:23.520 coming by the house. Laura was under a spell cast 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:27.040 by her own longing made manifest by the long haired 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:31.120 guitar playing guy from out of town. But that spell 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:37.400 was broken by the slow, very slow, dawning realization that 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:42.040 Laura was pregnant. Actually, my memory of that is that 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:45.200 I was in denial. I couldn't believe it I could 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:50.000 be pregnant. It's just devastating because I didn't know which 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.680 way to turn. There was nothing much worse in that 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:57.760 period of time, and to get pregnant, um, except if 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.040 a boyfriend didn't want marre you, and that was like 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:06.440 the ultimate. It was ascle back then. It's important to 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:09.200 understand that there was no such thing as sex education, 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:12.560 which my teenaged son has informed me is now called 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:17.480 human development. In the mid nineteen sixties and Biloxi, Mississippi, 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:22.200 it was called family hygiene. Let's take a second to 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:26.400 think about that term family hygiene. It's like a big 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:32.760 antiseptic wipe erasing the messy truth of teenage bodies and desires. Now, 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:36.599 consider that oral contraceptives a k a. The pill were 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:39.560 approved by the FDA in nineteen sixty, but it took 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.440 US a Preme Court case in nineteen sixty five to 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:46.400 give married couples the right to use it. For the unmarried, 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.400 the pill was like a myth whispered among girls, and 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:53.960 mostly you didn't whisper about such things because that would 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:59.000 mean you were a bad girl. Secret until my mother 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.680 cornered me when I was like three and apple once pregnant. 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:09.359 Aaron demanded, now if I was pregnant, and I said, 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:12.679 I'm not sure. I don't think so, because I'm not sick. 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:15.240 And aren't you supposed to be sick when you're pregnant. 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.560 Aren't you supposed to throw up when you're pregnant? And 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:23.520 that's why if I was my mother um permitted doctor, 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:28.320 sure enough, I was pregnant. She was horrified, went to 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:32.559 bed for a couple of days. I wouldn't even speak 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:35.640 to me. My father wouldn't speak to me. I thought 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:38.080 it was a very quiet man, that I was his 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.279 only daughter, and he and I just adore each other. 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:44.800 It was the apple of his eye, and all of 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.080 a sudden he turned away from me. Would speak to me. 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:53.480 In the meantime, he called my old boyfriend's parents, and 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:57.320 no doubt that he had just gone into boot camp 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:02.440 and he wasn't Fort Benning for that. And my father 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:05.560 took me in the car and my moother interrove straight there, 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:09.279 four hundred miles and I thought that he could have 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.600 us married there, because if I did get married, that 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.120 was like getting on with everyone's problems. Dr bid. They 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.919 think I was pregnant and not, you know, married. I 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:21.920 thought we would go to a church there and and 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:24.719 get married, or we'd go to justice in the peace. 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:27.039 And I had this fantasy that it was all going 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:32.440 to work out. Let's just back up for a second. 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:36.320 I just want a little bit more. Those four miles 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:41.680 back and forth between Biloxi and Fort Benning. What was 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:44.240 the atmosphere like in the car between you and your parents. 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:50.120 It's interesting to bring that up. That was torture. Neither 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:53.560 one of my parents said hardly anything, even to each other. 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.640 My mother sat in the front seat trying my father 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:02.159 just to a long. I don't even remember him turning 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:04.440 back and looking at me or saying anything. I'm sure 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:08.159 we stopped to go to the the bathroom. Um. It was 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.480 horribly I have to tell you, though. I do remember 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.800 in the backseat thinking it would all work out that 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:20.480 once my boyfriend saw me, and I honestly thought my 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:22.920 father would just go take him, pick him up at 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:28.040 the dace, that everyone would say. Sure. In the trunk 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.520 of that silent car speeding through those four miles between 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:36.000 Biloxi and Fort Benning was a white dress and white shoes. 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.520 Laura thought she'd be married in the way. I remember. 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.520 It was kind of an Empire style dress, and my 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.960 grandma was a seamstress, so I ought to beautiful close 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:49.400 for me. And I don't even know where that dress 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:51.880 came from, but it was nothing. It was not new. 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:54.320 It was a dress in my closet, and I remember 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:58.520 it was clean colored, and I remember taking white cut 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:02.000 like pumps because weren't heels, but they were pomps, you know, 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:08.600 And I just remember packing my battle bag. When we 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:12.240 got to the hotel room, I took a bath. I 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.240 remember being in the back and thinking this is all 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.720 been working out. I remember getting dressed and my mother 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:21.480 stayed in the room with me, but she and I 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:27.400 didn't we didn't speak that much. But big surprise, things 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.120 didn't work out that way. Her dad returned to the 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:34.040 hotel without the boyfriend in tow. The boyfriend's parents had 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.000 told him he didn't have to marry Laura. His drill 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.040 sergeant told him he didn't have to marry Laura, And 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:44.319 so Laura's father, still not speaking to her, said only 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.640 one thing as they packed up and headed back to Biloxi. 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.559 He doesn't deserve you, he said, a small high beam 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.120 of love, cutting for just a moment through all that 0:08:56.200 --> 0:09:04.320 family shame. But not too long after that a plan 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:09.160 was hatched. My father and my grandmother talked to the 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.680 minister and he told them about the home over there 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:16.599 as a maternity home for I'm wed mother's and it 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:20.280 had been in New Orleans since like the late eighteen 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.960 and it was run by the church. And they assured 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:29.120 me that I would be taken care of and my 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.400 mother said to me. She took me aside and said, 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:36.520 if you go over there and have the baby, what 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:41.559 we'll do is we will have you have the baby 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:43.880 over there, and when you come back, I'm going to 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.000 say the baby is mine, and you can pretend like 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:52.120 you're the baby's sister. And I'm in love with it, 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.040 because I thought, even though I still couldn't even comprehend 0:09:56.120 --> 0:10:00.160 a baby, I still thought, you know, at least this way, 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:04.240 I have my baby. And so I've been along with it, 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.040 and I said, okay. So as a seventeen year old, 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:11.600 I thought, well, this is going to solve the problem. 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.559 I'll go there, all the out of sight, nobody in 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:19.000 my hometown will see me walking around pregnant. Um, I'll 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.880 have the baby and then we'll come up. That's father 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:28.760 and mother both droves me over to New Ones in March, 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:35.439 and Um, I remembered it, thinking they're both going to 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:38.600 go in with me. Of course, I was scared to death. 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:44.800 I'd never lived anywhere at a home. Imagine being a 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:47.360 seventeen year old girl who has never lived anywhere other 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:50.800 than your own home with your parents and brothers, and 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.240 pulling up to a nondescript red brick building in a 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:58.360 big city full of strangers. Imagine stepping out of that 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.800 car knowing that for five months you will live apart 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.920 from everyone you know and love. Will you prepare for 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:10.000 one of the biggest moments of your life childbirth. Laura's mother, 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:12.840 who just can't handle it, stays in the car as 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:16.439 her father takes her inside. My father had to do it. 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:19.679 And it was while we were in there that the 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:23.880 lady was admitting me when she said it was a 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.440 wonderful thing, but I was doing giving up my child 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.760 to be loved by a family that could not have children. 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:36.040 I stopped her and I said, there's a mistake. And 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:38.640 I was not the kind of teenager that would do that, 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:42.400 you know, I didn't make ways with adults. I was 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:46.480 very respectful of adults, of course, And I said, you know, 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:51.400 there's a mistake. I'm not leading the baby here. I'm no, no, 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:53.520 I'm going to keep it. My mom is going to 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:56.560 raise it. And she looked at my father and he 0:11:56.640 --> 0:12:03.240 looked at her, and that's when everything changed. She left 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:06.680 the room, and my memory is and it's so traumatic 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:11.200 at that point that my memory is like um savvy 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:14.840 and it's little bits and pieces. For so many years, 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.080 I wouldn't even allow myself to go there. He's talking 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:21.120 to me, and he's telling me, you don't want your 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.360 mama to raise this baby. And I think he was 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:31.720 trying to protect not just me, the the baby. I 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:36.240 think he had just made up his mind that that 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.240 was not gonna work. And he's the one that told 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.360 me this is what he wanted. And I remember I 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.480 was so glad that he was finally talking to me 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.720 and giving me advice. I think I would have done 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:53.439 anything to him, because it killed me what he's stopped 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:57.640 talking to me, and I wanted to make him happy. 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:02.280 And I remember thinking at the same time, I said okay. 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:07.959 I remember thinking I said his fantasy that somehow everything 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.800 would work out, he would change his mind and that 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:15.960 I would keep the baby. But I told him. The 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:18.600 Home for Unwed Mothers asked the girls to change their 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:22.200 names while they were there. This stripping away of their 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:26.360 very identities was meant to preserve their anonymity from each other, 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:30.600 from any possibility that their secret might someday be revealed. 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:36.680 Laura was told, you will forget this. Ever happened, it 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:40.440 became like a Mantra repeated to her over and over again. 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:43.920 Within the walls of that red brick building, you will 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.880 forget this ever happened. On one side of the building 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.120 was where the girls lived, the dormitories upstairs, and we 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:56.000 had a kitchen, an area for um, you know, reading, 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:58.360 and there was a TV room and that type of thing. 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:01.800 And it was a chapel, because that was very important. 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:05.080 So Laura and the other girls would listen to their 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.680 transistor radios, call each other by their fake names, and 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:12.120 flipped through the pages of seventeen magazine, while on the 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:14.440 other side of the wall from where they slept each night, 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:17.640 there was a clinic where they would eventually give birth, 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:21.640 and a nursery where babies were kept until they were adopted. 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.560 In the meantime, the girls were given jobs. Laura's was 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:31.080 to tend to the children in that nursery. Their belief 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:35.640 was that the girls would be preoccupied working, which is 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:37.760 true we were, and it would give us a sense 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:42.480 of responsibility to have a job to go to every day, 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:45.600 and it also helped the home to run smoother, of course, 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:51.040 And from what I remember, we were all very eager 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:53.920 to do our jobs. I remember doing my job was 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:55.920 important to me, and I wanted to do a good job. 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.760 I had never been around new form babies and I 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.520 little brothers, but I'd never taken care of newborn babies. 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:08.280 It was life changing for me because the nurse, the age, 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.080 the nurses, aids, and the nurses that worked in there 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:16.360 were black. My hometown, I've never had a friend of 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:21.280 any color except light. Biloxi, Mississippi, in nineteen sixty seven 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:25.040 was a tourist town of beaches, nightclubs, and casinos. All 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.720 those places were still de facto off limits to African Americans. 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:34.000 It took federal intervention in night after years of protests 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:37.880 to open the beaches of Biloxi to non whites. It 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:40.440 taught me so much. It taught me about me two 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:44.920 so non judgment. It's such a wonderful person, and it 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:48.160 opened my eyes to the real world. And and I 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:52.680 think that changed me tremendously in that time. After five 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:56.400 months in the Home for unweed Mothers slash Nursery, Laura 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:00.760 goes into labor and her labor becomes quickly distressed. Instead 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.920 of giving birth at the home as expected, she's taken 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:08.760 to a nearby hospital. My memory is named they're scared 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:12.480 to death in labor on a grey in the hallway, 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.080 which seems like for a long time. I have no 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:19.440 idea how long it really was. And then I was 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:22.040 spent in the labor room. The next thing I knew 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.440 was my mother came walking in the room. She looked 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.640 like she was fun to die when she walked in. 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:34.800 She was just petrified, and I remember crying. I would 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:37.400 just you know, in pain. And I don't know if 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:40.480 they'd given me anything. I don't think they had, and 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:44.200 I was scared. And she stayed for a very short time, 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:47.360 and she told me just to calm down and I 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:52.000 would get through this. And then she left, and I 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:53.560 think she might have been asked to me, but she 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.040 did leave. And the next thing I know is they 0:16:56.040 --> 0:17:00.600 gave me a shot, and my memories con I'm pretty 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.080 sure what they gave me was tilight. The tilight shot. 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:05.639 That is a lot back then where you have no 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:11.840 memory of anything that's happening after the fact, And my 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:16.800 first memory is so distinct. My first memory is waking 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:22.520 up in a ward with six or eight other women, 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:28.080 and it's morning, the sun's coming in the window, and 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:32.399 they've said my dady and I have no memory that 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:34.639 my baby. I don't know if it's a boy. I 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.760 don't know if it's a girl, and do nothing. They 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.399 do know that all the women in this room, and 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:42.960 we're all facing each other. It's like they had our beds, 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:45.520 like in a circle, is the only way I can 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:49.919 describe it. And they're all talking about their babies and 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:54.199 their husbands and their other children. And I'm eavesdropping, but 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:58.240 I'm very sigh and I'm scared to death and petrislight 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.280 is that day are going to know that I'm an 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:06.200 unwit mother. That is my biggest fear. This she name 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:10.440 of being an unwit mother. So I don't talk to anybody. 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:15.600 The nurses command and I asked the nurse about my baby. 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:18.919 If she said over, I'll be bringing him into you 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:24.879 when I bring the others. And that's my first inclination 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:28.000 that my first knew I had the baby and it's 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:32.840 a boy. And I'm thrilled because I'm thinking I'm going 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:36.320 to see my baby and hold it, and at the 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:39.199 same terman petrifide because I don't want them to know 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:44.760 that I'm one of those women and unwit mother and 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.240 that that memory is very strong. But I remember when 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:55.280 they're broughting in. It was just it was beautiful and 0:18:56.240 --> 0:19:02.120 it was so painful because I knew that this baby, 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.600 it's not going to be my baby, and he was. 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:08.239 He was part of me for the minute I helped came, 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:12.000 he was part of me. And that's that's when it 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:16.280 all began as far as my when I really realized 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.320 the impact of what this is just going to do. 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:25.399 How much time did you spend with him before you 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:29.000 didn't see him again? Actually, I held him and I 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:32.359 said to get a little bottle to give him, and 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:34.720 I knew what to right foot to do because I 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.520 had been working in a nursery and I said him 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.959 and I held him and I unwrapped him, and the 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:45.119 whole time trying to be strong because I don't want 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.200 anyone to know what I'm really thinking. And the nursing 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.520 man it took him from me, and it just told 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:54.480 me not to make a scene because I didn't want 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:57.320 or taken from me. She took him from me. And 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.800 my next memories and I don't even when I got there. 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:05.639 My next memory is going back to the home and 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.040 I was put into a clinics right because when she 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.240 had your baby didn't you known gold the theater girls? 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:14.400 And you know kind of like your getting ready to 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:19.400 be it, you know, sit out of there. During her 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:22.960 time caring for infants in the nursery, Laura had instinctively 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:27.600 learned a great deal about attachment. She's a naturally empathic, 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:31.840 compassionate person, and even as a petrified seventeen year old, 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.720 she's thought of those babies, not just her son, to 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:39.280 whom she gave the crib name of Jamie, but all 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:41.880 of the babies. How long would it take for them 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:44.880 to be adopted, how would they be held and cared for? 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:48.240 How would they attach without a mother to attach to? 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:51.000 How would the time in the nursery, in the Home 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:55.040 for the unwed mothers impact them. She longed to spend 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:59.800 as much time with Jamie as she could, because it's 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:04.560 so obvious to me. As they got older, their faces 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.399 was right up. I can see their faces now. They 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.760 were a few that were very important to me, and 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:15.600 they've they've stayed with me all these years. They are 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:17.800 little staces. You can see your eyes and see there's 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:19.960 the lives light up. When you bent over to pick 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:25.040 them up out of their crew. Um, it was something 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:27.960 inside me up I think I've always been maternal. Being 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.560 a mother has been the most important thing in my life, 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:36.520 and my children have meant more to me than I 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:38.919 always say. They are my arms and life. They are 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:42.480 part of me. I have all sons. They are me 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:47.800 and I am there. I knew that even then. The 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:51.760 first time I held Day, they knew that he he 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:56.200 was me be hungus him. I actually got to hold 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:58.399 my son again because the nurse who I had become 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:02.159 so close to day afternoon, she was alone in the 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:04.640 nurse week. She let me hope my son was three 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:10.640 weeks old. So Dad is one of the most was 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:14.399 one of the most beautiful, beautiful memories I had the 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:17.000 fact that I got to hold my shirt again. And 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:19.920 he was adopted at five weeks, so two weeks later 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:23.760 he was gone from the home. You were repeatedly told 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:28.880 by everyone, you will forget this ever happened. Was there 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:32.320 ever a moment where you forgot that this ever happened? 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:37.160 I never forgot for a minute. I thought of him 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:41.760 every day from that day forward, and I don't think 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:44.159 a day went by that he didn't flicker through my 0:22:44.240 --> 0:22:48.760 bind or something. I'd look at one of my other sons. 0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:52.160 You know, and I'd always wonder where is he? How 0:22:52.400 --> 0:22:56.879 is he? When I sent spif home? He was a 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:02.679 miss I was Besides, I was furious. I felt like 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:07.320 I had been betrayed. I felt like, okay, I'm they 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:10.879 think I'm so bad, I'll be bad. I remember drinking 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:14.280 alcohol in my bedroom. A girlfriend brought it to me. 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:17.600 I mean, I was not the person would be in 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:21.560 my bed room drinking, you know, podcast And I started 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:25.600 smoking cigarettes and I had started smoking at the home, 0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:30.160 and I thought, Okay, they say I'm dead, I'll be bad. 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:33.919 But at the same time, I think that was just, 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:38.760 you know, my rebellion. What had happened to me. We're 0:23:38.760 --> 0:23:47.200 going to pause for a moment. Six months after she's 0:23:47.240 --> 0:23:50.320 back home, Laura's brother convinces her to go to a party, 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:52.760 and it's there she meets a guy in the Air 0:23:52.800 --> 0:23:56.960 Force who's from California. In short order, she marries him 0:23:57.119 --> 0:24:00.439 and moves to California, away from the place it holds 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:04.880 so many painful memories and secrets. Except we all know 0:24:04.960 --> 0:24:07.760 what happens when we run away from secrets. We take 0:24:07.800 --> 0:24:13.200 them with us wherever we go. Do you think, I mean, 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:16.040 it's impossible really to answer this question, But do you 0:24:16.160 --> 0:24:20.600 think that had this not been your experience, had you 0:24:20.680 --> 0:24:24.399 not had a child that you were forced to give 0:24:24.480 --> 0:24:27.359 up for adoption, and yet everything else remained the same, 0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:30.480 and you still were at that party that evening that 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:32.440 your brother talked to you into going and you met 0:24:32.480 --> 0:24:36.920 this man, do you think that you would have married him? Yeah? 0:24:38.280 --> 0:24:39.960 I think I would have been in a totally different 0:24:39.960 --> 0:24:43.760 space in my life. I know that having my son 0:24:44.160 --> 0:24:46.960 is having to give him a for adoption, changed my 0:24:47.000 --> 0:24:50.679 whole direction of my life. I would probably have stayed 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:55.600 in Mississippi. Um, maybe not, but I would have gone 0:24:55.600 --> 0:25:00.280 on to college. I would have had a totally different life. Ever, 0:25:00.480 --> 0:25:05.119 in my wildest dreams, would I have gotten married. That's 0:25:05.280 --> 0:25:09.520 quickly to somebody. I was able to admit to myself 0:25:09.600 --> 0:25:14.960 as I got older and raiser, that I used him. 0:25:15.000 --> 0:25:20.240 I I can't say that I'm this perfect angel. I 0:25:20.359 --> 0:25:26.240 used him to leave a bad situation. My parents would 0:25:26.240 --> 0:25:29.800 not even talk to me about that it happened. My grandmother, 0:25:30.040 --> 0:25:33.080 who I adored and who loved me more than anything, 0:25:33.480 --> 0:25:36.439 would not talk to me about what happened. I was 0:25:36.640 --> 0:25:40.080 mourning that home time for a baby. That it was 0:25:40.160 --> 0:25:43.200 as if he had died, but you can't talk about it. 0:25:43.200 --> 0:25:46.159 It's a secret. Nobody is supposed to know that you 0:25:46.200 --> 0:25:49.240 did this, and God forbid as they do, what they're 0:25:49.240 --> 0:25:50.720 going to think of you? And what are they going 0:25:50.760 --> 0:25:54.480 to think of the family. Laura and her husband have 0:25:54.560 --> 0:25:58.440 three boys together, but the marriage isn't a particularly happy one. 0:25:59.040 --> 0:26:03.119 After about a decade together, they split up. When we 0:26:03.119 --> 0:26:06.159 were finally divorced. I had met my second husband on 0:26:06.200 --> 0:26:09.400