I WAS recently visiting a young friend at Newcastle Private Hospital who'd had a baby. As I left, I looked at one of the adjacent buildings and saw it was once called "the Lodge".
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
The Lodge became significant in 1966 when it became the residence of many young, single, pregnant women, until they laboured and delivered their babies at the Royal Newcastle Hospital.
There were up to 40 young women there at any time. Historically, the Lodge served this purpose until, due to lack of demand, it closed in 1987.
The Lodge was run by the Royal Newcastle Hospital and Sister Berry was the sister in charge for many years. There were nursing staff there at all times.
While a number of young women came from interstate, the majority came from Newcastle and the Hunter Valley.
One of the nursing sisters who worked an occasional evening shift describes being aware of some boys visiting their girlfriends outside the building. There is no record of families visiting their daughters.
Antenatal classes were run by the visiting physiotherapist and the girls were medically reviewed weekly by the registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology from the Royal.
I was one such registrar and visited the Lodge throughout 1968. It has been one of the special times in my life.
After doing their antenatal care, I would have morning tea with these young women and we would talk. I soon set up an anonymous question box and we had much fun discussing an enormous range of questions, the details of which you could not imagine.
When they came into labour, they were transferred to the Royal labour ward and following delivery, they returned to the Lodge for a week until their discharge. Those who lived locally returned for their six-week post-natal check-up.
The reproductive knowledge that these young women acquired was incredible; there being little else for them to be interested in. I recall one of the girls, who I will call Jill, requiring some assistance during her delivery. To reduce the pain associated with her forceps delivery, I needed to inject some local anaesthetic around the pudendal nerve to anaesthetise the area.
As I was injecting the local anaesthetic, Jill said very clearly: "Be careful that you don't hit the pudendal vein." She knew the pudendal nerve ran alongside the pudendal blood vessels. Such was Jill's knowledge of all that was going on. Like Jill, all the girls returned to the Lodge to talk about their obstetric experience but never seeing their baby.
I look back on this adoption process and find it hard to look at what these girls went through. They arrived at the Lodge because of shame. It was very much part of the culture then, that the family needed no one to know that their daughter was pregnant. "Jill's gone away on a holiday" was the reasoning put out to family and friends.
I have no idea of the depth of rejection that the girls experienced.
Being together in this safe environment may have reduced the isolation. We gave them no opportunity to work through all that was going on for them. We seemed only capable of keeping them comfortable physically.
For example, Leon Clark was the president of the Royal's resident medical officers. They had accumulated considerable funds that came from their work. As the current registrar in obstetrics, Leon saw the girls' need for relief during the summer and persuaded the residents to fund the building of a swimming pool at the Lodge. Leon called it "an altruistic act". It still stands as the rehab pool today.
It wasn't until Jen and I adopted our daughter in 1966 that the solicitor who was overseeing the formality of the adoption informed us her birth mother had six weeks in which to change her mind and take her baby home. In those days, it was not possible to take the baby home, so it rarely became an option. The girls at the Lodge were not aware of the legal choice that existed.
There are some aspects of this "issue" to consider. First: the family's dealing with the "problem". "What will everyone think?" "I will be seen as a bad mother." Dad says: "I'll kill him." Do any families resolve these issues or is it something they never talk about?
Second: the young woman's trauma of what to do. There were only three options: termination, adoption or keeping the baby. It's a huge decision to give up the baby having excluded termination as an option. At a profound heart and spiritual level, if all things were equal, which they never are, the vast majority of the young women I have seen would have loved to keep their baby.
Third: the feelings that stay with these young women over the years that follow. I know of a lady who returned to Newcastle years after her adoption through the Royal. As she walked down the street and saw young children, she said to herself "could that one be mine?"
Fourth: the developing baby in the adoption situation has no one to connect with, as the mother doesn't connect with the baby she's going to give up. So adopted children have abandonment as an experience to resolve as do the babies who are born but not wanted.
It is only in recent times that we have become aware of the importance of the emotional connection between the parents and the baby in the uterus. This is the basis for the baby's ability to form healthy intimate adult relationships.
Dr Steele Fitchett is a Newcastle counsellor, who has also worked in obstetrics and palliative care.
![TRAUMA: Women forced to give up their children for adoption under the culture of the 1960s and 1970s often felt rejected and isolated. TRAUMA: Women forced to give up their children for adoption under the culture of the 1960s and 1970s often felt rejected and isolated.](/images/transform/v1/resize/frm/storypad-36mDshx2U2dAuMR3XyjpW6R/9aa29dce-7bb9-4134-9ec9-575f1577684b.jpg/w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)