Unspoken

“I was two when the woman I called Mummy told me, ‘You came out of another mummy’s tummy.’ I grew up thinking that my birth mother didn’t want me. I assumed there must’ve been something inherently wrong with me – why else would a mother give up her baby?” In 1974, Liz Harvie – born Claire Elaine Watts – was given up for adoption by her birth mother Yvonne. Claire was just eight weeks old when her adoptive parents took her in – and renamed her Elizabeth. Although brought up in a ‘perfect’ household, the emotional – and physical – trauma of being taken from her biological mother would never leave Liz. She constantly wondered: what does my real mum look like? Will she come back for me? Why did she abandon me? But whenever Liz voiced such questions, she invariably received the same response: “Your birth parents were not married. They couldn’t look after you.” Years later, aged twenty-eight, Liz reconnected with her birth mother – and finally learned the shocking truth surrounding her adopt