Adopted child reunion: Hilary’s story
As a single woman, Hilary Dyer was persuaded to give away her baby. She was 24 when her son Christopher was taken from her as she left the nursing home where he’d been born “I thought about him every day but I buried my feelings really deep and I always assumed that he wouldn’t want to know me,” she says. She was wrong. Five years ago she came home from work and opened a letter written by an intermediary, saying that Christopher was looking for her. Although rejection occurs in less than 10% of cases, Hilary Dyer’s initial reaction was guarded. “I opened this letter and I was absolutely gutted. I felt as if I’d been slammed against the wall. I was shouting and yelling. It was such a shock. I was really angry that my peace had been shattered, angry and upset.” Hilary – a retired teacher who, in her sixties is so kind, sensible and stiff-upper-lipped that it is impossible to imagine her yelling – rang the intermediary to say she wanted no contact with her son. She had no desire to dig up what she had buried so successfully that not even her three children knew about it. “But my husband, who did know, although we never talked about it – said, ‘If this chap wants to meet you I think you should.’ And two or three days later curiosity began to kick in.” Within a week she had agreed to an exchange of letters. Hilary finally met Christopher three months after that first contact and she still “howls buckets” at the end of every meeting with him. “It’s because I don’t know if he’ll want to see me again. Children with whom you are reunited hold all the cards; it’s one of the things that’s hard to bear.” Hilary and Christopher met in a neutral town. They shook hands before going to a Beefeater pub where they ate chicken tikka and sticky puddings which, they quickly discovered, they both love.
They talked easily and superficially and at the end Hilary said, “You arranged this meeting, so you can pay for the drinks.” “Wasn’t that rude?” she giggles. “But I wasn’t sure how to behave, I felt embarrassed.”
Hilary sees Christopher, a bachelor, three or four times a year now. When we met she had recently hung curtains she’d made for his flat. “You have to get clever at this, you have to be proactive. For them, seeing you is a bonus but it’s not necessary; for you the need to see them is enormous.”
Christopher went on holiday with Hilary and her family to celebrate her 60th birthday. He gets on famously with her youngest daughter, “like blokes do” and with her son.
She says he gets on “fine” (catch the note of caution) with the other daughter, who thought she was Hilary’s oldest child. Hilary curses herself for writing to tell this daughter of Christopher’s existence and she bends over backwards to ensure her position in the family is not undermined.
“I love him to bits, but it’s different from the others,” she says. “At first it’s like a teenager meeting a new boyfriend: you’re desperate to hear from them, the feelings take over your life, you feel compelled to tell comparative strangers all about it.”
This fades but he is still, she admits, her prodigal son. She has not met his adoptive mother; no one seems to want that. “We do not play happy families,” she says.
“It was a mad fling after a dance, we were unlucky really, but if I hadn’t done it,” – she smiles down at the photograph of Christopher on the table between us – “I wouldn’t have met him. I really look forward to seeing him, I enjoy every moment of him; for me the reunion has been a positive experience.” Written by Serena Allott
This article was created: 14 July 2006.
This article was last edited: 24 January 2007.
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