Birthdays, black dogs and adoption!

I was born on the 6th July 1966 by caesarean section and the very next day was lodged in the Lord & Lady Polwarth Children’s Home baby unit. 

I first read my social work file aged 30 having had my curiosity piqued by a TV series on the Barnardo’s Children and the steps some of them took to find out their history and family members.

According to my social work file my mother was unfit to care for me and from what I later discovered I was the second child she had with my father who unfortunately was married to another woman. In the view of the Kirk & social workers my parents were incapable of raising children in a stable environment.

My intention was to read my file and nothing more as out of a sense of loyalty to my adoptive parents felt anything else would be disloyal. Which brings me onto adoption, at the age of 4, I was adopted by parents who very much raised me as their eldest child with my sister and brother. My sister was their natural child and my brother an adoptee like me. It was a good and caring family, where each of us was loved and encouraged in whatever we were good at. 

But one thing I remember was I never enjoyed my birthdays. If I'm honest, I dreaded them.

I certainly was bewildered as how someone could give their child away, felt rejected, struggled with love and linking with my title suffered from black dog moods, as Winston Churchill describes them, around my birthday. 

Quite simply hard wired into my psyche is the feeling of rejection on the day of my birth. I suspect my birth mother never saw me, as she’d have had a full aesthetic for the operation and I would have been taken straight from the delivery suite to the nursery and thence onto the baby unit the next day. 

When I realised this I discussed it with my Mum, who’s only comment was I’d always been off for a week or so around my birthday, apparently birthday parties were soon shelved as the family opted for low key affairs. Can’t say I blame them.

I’m not naturally depressive, it’s only the first week in July the black dogs arrive and they depart on the 7th. I’m not depressed when others have birthdays. I enjoy celebrating my family’s birthdays, they are things of joy and fun. Just not my own, please.

I even discussed the matter with a good GP whilst I was out in Switzerland, he was all for setting up counselling for me until his wife a children’s psychiatrist told him it was a well known phenomena amongst adoptees and if I functioned well enough away from my birthday might be better spending my money on other things! I know she was Swiss, but there must be a Scots gene in there, fiscally prudent!!!

So if you are a friend or family of mine, I’m sorry, I know I’m no fun around my birthday but just let me be. By all means say happy birthday, maybe make me endure a birthday cake or singing but not more, no parties, no enforced fun, I just want to see the day end asap.

Which takes me back to adoption. I’d say my adoption was an over whelming success, with the exception of birthdays!!! Mum & Dad, loved me as their own, brought me up well and I thrived. 

Surely this is the point of adoption, to take a child in need into a family where they can be loved and become the man or woman they should become. 

It was also timely, a year later and the abortion act came into force, the availability of young children in the UK almost dried up overnight.

Where I differ from most adoptees is, that was my first adoption and yet I had another!

At the age of 16 outside British Home Stores on Princes Street Edinburgh I became a Christian. I simply was stopped by a street preacher who challenged me about my faith and then despite having been brought up in the church I wasn’t one, I knew I hadn’t been born again, I’d heard about it from friends but couldn’t get my head around it. 

But on the 10th June 1982, I gave my heart to Jesus and was adopted into his family. With my brothers and sisters in Christ I am part of his family. All of us saved by grace and adopted into His family.

And the good thing is, there are no black dogs around the 10th June!

If you’d like to know more about either of my adoptions feel free to get in contact.

Agape,

Doug Else-Jack