THE SECRET DAUGHTER by Kelly Rimmer

 Kelly lives in the Central West of New South Wales with her family.

A very beautiful and sensitive story based on truly heartbreaking true events in Australia in the early 70's concerning forced adoptions. 

Goodreads Says:  As I saw my new-born baby’s face for the first time I tried desperately to capture her face in my mind—to stamp it onto my eyelids. As she was taken from me I knew I might never see my daughter again.

37 years later…
‘You were adopted’. Three short words and Sabina’s life fractures. There would forever be a Before those words, and an After.

Pregnant with her own child, Sabina can’t understand how a mother could abandon her daughter, or why her parents have kept the past a secret.

Determined to find the woman who gave her away, what she discovers will change everything, not just for Sabina, but for the women who have loved her all these years.

From the bestselling author of Me Without You comes another touching, beautifully told story about the pain of separation and the enduring strength of love.
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It’s set in Australia and covers ‘Forced Adoption Practices’ where the government made decisions for pregnant girls. Unwed mothers were treated almost as criminals and then forced to give up their babies. This book was a most interesting read. 

It’s a practice that began shortly after the end of the Second World War, but continued for decades. In most cases, the mothers were shipped off to so-called maternity homes where they were sequestered from their families until the end of the pregnancies and then their babies would be adopted.

It’s estimated that 350,000 mothers in Canada were coerced to surrender their babies, and in some extreme cases were lied to and told their babies died at birth.

But there's a group of women who have suffered silently for decades. In the years after the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of unmarried mothers from North America, Australia, and the UK were systemically and often violently separated from their babies by forced adoption.  The homes, supported by federal funding, were often run by religious organizations.

As a result, most Canadian provinces have what are referred to as semi-open records — records that both mother and adoptee can access, but are subject to a disclosure veto by either party. Such is currently the case in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Yukon.

What a heartfelt story, where there is heartbreak and happiness.