Matrescence is the physical, emotional, hormonal and social transition or journey where a person becomes a mother. The word itself, hums a gentle authority. Matrescence echoes the idea that one does not have to give birth to become a mother. The birth of a mother is so much more complex than just physical labour, and if you are reading this, a mother yourself, you’ll understand that motherhood is really a ‘labour of the soul’. Motherhood also looks, feels, smells, and sounds so different to each of us, and our individual journeys to become one are even more unique. Stepmothers, adoptive mothers, mothers in waiting, solo mothers, co-parenting mothers, foster carers, mothers who lost their babies, we are all mothers. There are so many of us moving in the same place, sometimes unknowingly.
^
Earlier this year, there was an outcry to reinstate IVF in Victoria after it was suspended to free up health resources for COVID cases. The pressure of mums and mums-in-waiting, sharing their stories and the devastating effect suspensions would have for women going through the IVF process, caused the cancellation to be overturned by the government. This triumph was, to me, an example of how the community of mums are really at the top of an ecosystem. In recent times, the IVF process has gained broarder representation on mainstream media. Lena Dunham wrote for Harper's Bazaar about it, influencers share their journeys social media, and the population's understanding of how IVF works is gaining clarity. Conversley, when I tried searching for adoptive stories, resources were lacking. On top of the search were the Australian biographical film Lion, Brad and Angelina and some cute 1990’s footage from the final season of Sex and City where Charlotte and Harry adopt their daughter Lilly from China. There is also, dissappointingly, a still common notion that adoption is easy.
^
Adoption is not easy, and has become less common. Just 334 children were adopted in 2019-20, 37 of them international adoptions despite 18 million orphans globally, who have lost both their parents and 40,000 children within Australia living away from their birth parents for over two years, unlikely to return home. Like IVF, the path of adoption is a waiting game. It takes patience, trust and sitting in a painful space of unknowing. It is the tale of one mother sacrificing their baby and another taking the vast responsibility to mother it like her own. Two versions of matrescence, equal in weight. To tell a story of the reality of adoption with reverence, I asked my own mother, Pippy Fookes, a country girl from Kingaroy QLD, who, at the tender age of 25, started the process of adopting her first child (me) from South Korea.
^
OK Mum, tell us a bit of your journey to becoming a mother, was adoption something you had always envisioned
"I had always known I wanted to be a mother. Both my brother and sister were a bit older than me, so I had already been very close with my nieces and nephews. Not long after I had married, I had a miscarriage, and for the next couple of years, though we kept trying to conceive, nothing was happening. There didn’t appear to be any medical reason: the diagnosis given was 'non-specific infertility'. I’d gone to school with adopted neighbours who’d grown up in a loving family home. My husband had two adopted cousins. So adoption didn’t have negative connotations for either of us. When we moved to Canberra in July 1983, the time felt right to investigate what adoption pathways were available to us. I had had investigative surgery and tried fertility drugs, but the chances of me falling pregnant didn’t seem to improve with either, so we felt that we needed to be proactive if we were to begin our family."
