'It feels like a miracle': Marybeth's story of her first intimate experience and the power of reconnection

00:00 I am Mary Beth home, and it is April 24, 2024, and I'm speaking from Osprey, Florida. I'm a snowbird, and in five days, I'll be up in Northampton, Massachusetts. So I was raised Catholic and believed that having sex before marriage was a mortal sin. And so I was a committed virgin when? In 1966, when I transferred from my catholic girls college in Denver to the University of Connecticut. And in the middle of my junior year, and I transferred because my boyfriend Skip, who played on the basketball team at UConn, had been really begging me to transfer. And I finally was able to convince my father and moved there to UConn in the middle of my junior year. And then a couple of weeks afterwards, Skip broke up with me. And I never really understood why I didn't get it. I thought maybe it had something to do with the sex thing, because that wasn't where I wanted to go, and it was where he did anyway. So I met UConn That was a lonely year, transferring in, and about a year goes by, and it is the night before thanksgiving vacation, and I'm 20. I'm not 21. I'm 20. Yeah. And go to A's, which was the local bar with my fake id, and run into skip there, and he had just gotten kicked out of school for throwing rocks at the sorority house windows and was about to leave because it was in the Vietnam era, and it was about to leave for boot camp. So we hooked up that night, drank a lot of beer, and I don't remember much about that night. Went back. My nomad curfew that night, and other than a strange smell that seemed odd to me, life just went on. And I had no contact with skip, and. But my period never came, and. But I ignored it pretty much because I knew I couldn't be pregnant because I knew I hadn't had sex. And so that went on for a number of months. I think it was really about six months until I had to get Mary Beth, you are pregnant. And because I didn't remember any of it, I thought, this can't be happening. This can't be happening. And in my Catholicism thought that if I was pregnant, then I would be bad. I knew I wasn't bad, so therefore I wasn't pregnant. So that went on for a bunch of months. And June came. I'm six months pregnant. And it was the year of the tent dress, tent dresses. These dresses that actually did look like tent. And it was a great way of hiding a big belly. I went home. I had nobody. I had no one to talk to. There was. I felt so much shame around it and confusion, and I just didn't know what to do. So I went home after that semester and moped around the house a little bit. And my mother said to me one day, Mary Beth, are you pregnant? And she put her arms around me, and I just cried and cried and cried. Just the relief of being known. And so she felt like I did the sin of it, the shame of it, and worked with me to keep it quiet for my siblings and everybody. And we planned on me going to. We lived in Connecticut and going to Boston and got an apartment, a basement apartment. And I spent the summer in this apartment this whole year. When we think of loneliness, I think I probably have never been as lonely as then. It was the year. It was 1967, and it was the year of the Red Sox pennant. I lived near Fenway park, and it was a great baseball year. And I read everything, listened to every game, watched every game on television that I, you know, I just knew those guys intimately because that was my only contact, you know, my only life. Anyway, so September comes, and I go to the hospital, and I don't remember anything at all about the labor or. I don't remember any. They must have given me. You know, I don't know what. What that was, but when I did wake up, there was this baby girl. And the whole time that I was pregnant, I only imagined I. This thing in my stomach that was changing life for me in ways that just seemed crazy. And so it just seemed like a big, black, angry something or other that.

07:20 Was there, but certainly nothing that I.

07:22 Could relate to until after the birth.

07:28 And there she was.

07:30 And so for the three days that I was in the hospital, she was there with me and.

07:41 Getting to know.

07:43 Her, I just was blown away with her presence and her beauty in her wisdom. You know, it just. I just.

07:56 This was an amazing thing.

07:58 And I felt totally in love. And surprisingly, because, you know, I just was wanting this to be over, and that was it. But. So three days goes by, and then it's time to say goodbye. And that was probably the hardest thing that I've ever done. At the same time, knowing to my core that it wasn't time for me to be a mother, that I couldn't be a mother, that I wasn't the right mother, that she would be. Would be unfair for her to be with me as the mother, that she would be going to the right mother. And so I said goodbye and went.

08:56 Back to school for my last semester at UConn

09:03 So three months goes by and skip comes home from the guards, and we must have had some kind of contact, because he picked me up, and we drove to Boston. It was three months after she was born, and we drove to Boston to sign the papers to release her for adoption. So skip and I had had no contact at all during this time. And we went up and she said, signed the papers, and. And I had a postnatal exam, and the doctor said, mary Beth, do you want birth control pills? And I said, oh, thank you, but, no, that was a mistake. That was not. It's not going to happen again. So thank you. No, I don't need birth control bills. So on the way back to Connecticut, we fucked in the volkswagen, and it got back together, but still, I'm a committed virgin. And so there was this conflict that was, you know, it was very. It was kissing and making out, and then it would, you know, we would get to a place, and then we.

10:44 Were having sex, and then I'm realizing.

10:46 We'Re having sex, and I'm saying it certainly wasn't satisfying for anybody. That's what it looked like for a while. And so. And then. So I get my first teaching job, and I'm pregnant again. And I just could not go through that again. I knew that we couldn't do it. This is before abortion.

11:24 So.

11:27 Skip got $300 together somehow, and we went into inner city Hartford, and we paid a woman named Mary. We were up in this hotel, paper thin walls, crummy hotel, and she inserted a glass tube into my uterus and then left. And. But that started the process.

12:04 That started the labor.

12:06 And it was intense. It was intense. And here we are in this bare room, this hotel room, and not trying to keep a sound and not trying. Trying to not be loud, and yet it was just so intense. And finally, it seems that there was a head came out, and it turned out that I was probably, like, five months pregnant. You know, I had no idea. But anyway, so. And so there was a head. And when that head came out, the labor stopped. The pain stopped. The rest of the fetus didn't come out. It was just there, but the pain had stopped, and. And, you know, I could rest for a while. Finally, Mary came back, and I went back to my teaching job. My breasts had filled with milk. I showed up at my teaching job, you know, with these great big lobes from the milk that had come in. Anyway, so we later married.

13:29 I still had all kinds of shame.

13:31 From that birth, and. But we tried hard and got pregnant and again and had Jamie and, you know, so and I realized that. So Jamie is Ann's.

13:53 This baby's.

13:55 Ann's full sister. So I started trying to figure out what I would do about that.

14:08 So.

14:11 When she was 25, I found her. I had an organization that found her. And I wrote a letter to her. And so this is what I knew, was that she lived. I was in Northampton, Mass. And she was living in Stowe, Mass. Which is maybe an hour and a half or so away. And that she was living with her father. And that her mother had died. And that she was about to get married. So that's what I knew.

14:52 So I wrote her this letter. Dear Anne, I have waited 25 years to write this letter. Hopefully, it is the right time for you. On September 7, 1967, I gave birth to a baby girl. Who was later adopted as Anne Markham Kelly. I believe you are this child. You have been in my thoughts and in my heart and in my prayers all these years. Just recently, I did a search to locate you. I learned that you lived with your.

15:26 Father at this address.

15:27 And that your mother is deceased. It seemed that writing this letter would be the best way to contact you. At the time of your birth. I felt far from being the person to raise you. You deserved more. Somehow I knew that I was not to be your mother. That you were going through me to just the right parents. I have always been grateful to your mother and father. For wanting and loving and choosing you. I remember spending those days in the hospital with you. Although you were only hours old.

15:59 I was struck by your spirit.

16:01 It was obvious to me that you were a special being with a wise and beautiful nature. I later married and gave birth to another child. Her name is Jamie. She is 18 years old and is your full sister. I separated from her father 15 years ago. But we are all on good terms with one another. Jamie and I have longed to know you. You may not be interested, and this we would understand. However, we are hopeful that you will call or write. We would like to meet your father as well. I have enclosed a note for you to give him.

16:39 So then, this is the note that I sent him.

16:43 Dear Mister Kelly, this note comes to you through Anne. For I have enclosed it in a letter to her.

16:49 I want to tell you directly what I wrote.

16:52 25 years ago, I gave birth to a child who I believe is your daughter, Anne Markham Kelly. I would very much like to meet both of you.

17:02 You have all been in my heart.

17:04 These last 25 years. Intuitively, I felt that you and your wife were just the right parents for this special child. And I've been comforted by the inner knowing that you've raised her well. Thank you for wanting and loving and choosing her. I, too, have raised a daughter. Her name is Jamie. She is 18 years old and is Ann's full sister. Both Jamie and I would love to know your daughter. We realize that Anne may not be interested, and this we would understand. However, we look forward to the possibility of hearing from her and or you. I have waited until Anne has become a grown woman before introducing myself. There is something very meaningful and sacred about this whole process, and I want to take great care with it. I also want to share this important time with you. It is of the highest concern to me that any contact I may have with Anne only honors and supports the relationship you have as her father.

18:11 So that was. Yeah. So that was, I don't know, 15 years ago.

18:20 No, no.

18:21 Oh, that was 20. That was 25 years ago. So now Anne is the mother of seven children.

18:30 Seven amazing children.

18:32 She's an incredible mother. Just a well loved, liked, valued person in general, you know, she's just great and.

18:46 Truly a skilled, talented mother who.

18:49 Raised seven children, appeared to be, you know, effortlessly, you know, so we continue to be close and connected, and I love them all, and it just feels like a miracle.