Lyn Kinghorn shares forced adoption story in Bendigo at Victorian inquiry

For more than two decades a Mt Franklin woman lived with the trauma of having her baby forcibly taken. Now she has re-lived her story.

Lyn Kinghorn was 17-years-old when her baby was taken. Picture: Supplied

Lyn Kinghorn held her baby daughter for the first time on Christmas Eve, but after a moment of bliss the 17-year-old mother was left screaming in the halls mourning her stolen child.

And it would be 21 years before she was able to hold her daughter again.

The now 74-year-old Mount Franklin woman says she was one of thousands of Australian women whose children were “abducted” during the period of forced adoptions from the 1940s till the 1980s.

On Tuesday, Ms Kinghorn shared her story in Bendigo in the first regional hearings for the State Government’s Historical Forced Adoption Inquiry.

Ms Kinghorn said she was 16-years-old in 1963 when she was forced out of her Oakleigh home into Berry Street, Fitzroy — a home founded as a safe place for unwed, isolated or rejected mothers and their children.

Lyn, 17, gave birth to a baby girl in 1963. Picture: Contributed

Ms Kinghorn said the home, meant to be a sanctuary for women, was a “production line” for forced adoptions as the mothers were “groomed” and shamed into giving up their children.

“They were telling us we were totally unworthy of being mothers,” she said.

“They did everything they could do to demean us.

“It was an abduction agency,” she said.

But the emotional abuse did not break her enthusiasm to become a mother.

“I was so excited about being pregnant,” Ms Kinghorn said.

“I loved the thought of being a mum.”

At midnight on December 23 1963, the teen went into labour.

For more than 18 hours she coached herself through labour, with no family present, and doctors and nurses only rarely visiting her room until she was ready to give birth.

Ms Kinghorn said it was Christmas Day when she first held her baby girl in her arms.

“It was devastating thinking what was going to happen,” she said.

“I knew mothers who had never seen their babies, but mine was put by my bed.

“She was the most beautiful little thing I had ever seen in my life.”

Ms Kinghorn said she had arranged with the child’s father to meet at the hospital, but he never arrived.

It would be decades later, during the 2012 Federal inquiry into forced adoptions, that Ms Kinghorn discovered the baby’s father had been threatened violence and jail time if he tried to see her or his child.

Ms Kinghorn said she had just one week of “absolute bliss” with her daughter before the nurses of Berry Street took her daughter.

“I was screaming, running around the hospital begging for someone to help me,” she said.

“I was screaming – the most horrific memory of screaming.”

Ms Kinghorn said she was forcibly taken back to Berry Street where the matron told her “I hope you’ve learnt your lesson”.

In 1984, 21 years after her baby was taken, Ms Kinghorn reunited with her daughter, Christine.

Lyn Kinghorn reunited with her daughter, Christine. Picture: Supplied

“I couldn’t breath when I was near her … it was very distressing,” she said.

“It’s like an arm that has been chopped off and then reattached.

“You can’t rest on it like you would the other arm, it hurts too much.”

This week Ms Kinghorn shared her story at Kangaroo Flat at the Legislative Assembly Legal and Social Issues Committee hearings into historical forced adoptions in Victoria.

Ms Kinghorn said she was speaking again, eight years after the Federal inquiry, because women were still carrying the shame and secrets of their pregnancy.

“They said we were relinquishing or abandoning mothers, but we weren’t,” she said.

“We were abandoned by the people who should have cared about us.

“We were abandoned. Our children were abducted.

“This is a story that was repeated thousands of times over.”

In 2013 Prime Minister Julia Gillard apologised for forced adoptions, but Ms Kinghorn said many recommendations had not been legislated and not enough had been done to remedy the past.

“You apologised and then walked away,” she said.