IN 1970 Dawn Clay Obst was 19, a single woman working as a clerk in a Melbourne share broking firm and living independently in a flat when something happened to change her life forever.
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She fell pregnant.
“I told my family minister - he was someone I could talk to - and he told my parents who were living at that time in the United Kingdom,” Dawn said.
“They asked me to fly to the UK where no-one would know who I was.”
Dawn feared her father would lose his job at an intolerant finance firm in Australia if his daughter’s pregnancy was known “and then the child would live in shame all its life”.
“I could not do that to the child,” she said.
She agreed to adopting out her baby.
“I had no idea as a single mum I would be able to look after myself and provide for a child. I was very naive,” Dawn said.
“The minister said, as did my male doctor: ‘You can put it behind you and forget about it and come back as if nothing has happened’.
“But you cry when you see the small baby, you get depressed.”
Dawn delivered her baby in a Scottish hospital and named her Kylie, which was later changed to Katherine by the adoptive parents.
“I could look at her through a (hospital) window but I could not touch her, I knew if I touched her I would not be able to let her go,” Dawn said.
“I expected the depression to go away after the baby left the hospital, but in fact the grief was huge and it grew more and more … I felt as if my child had died; she hadn’t but the separation was huge.”
Dawn was reunited with her daughter when Katherine was 24, and the healing began.
Katherine visited Australia from Scotland and the pair have been close ever since.
Five years ago, Dawn helped found A Riverina Adoption Group, which comprises people whose lives have been impacted by adoption, including adopted children and people who relinquished children.
“Some of our members are children from the Stolen Generation and did not know they had been adopted out,” Dawn said.
The group will conduct an ecumenical Christian service in the historic council chambers at 3pm on Sunday to mark Mother’s Day.
Led by the Reverend Wendy Bloomfield, the open service will include reflections, readings and prayers for all people whose lives have been impacted by adoption.
The service is in conjunction with the travelling museum exhibition Without Consent: Australia’s Past Adoption Practices.
”I think everybody should see the exhibition, I’ve seen it four times,” Dawn said.
”We have tissue boxes everywhere and (help line) numbers for people to ring.”
