Maggie Driver

Year of Surrender:  1982 City and State at the time of birth:  Scranton, Pennsylvania Age at the time of birth:  15

Please do not discount my story.  I am a success story and I wish to be an example for your cause. I got pregnant in late spring of 1982. The director of Clinton County Children & Youth Services,Gerald Rosimilia, convinced my parents to send me to St.Joseph's Childrens,& Maternity Hospital in Scranton,PA. Actually this home was located in Dunmore; but the home used a Scranton address. They couldn't even be honest about where the home was located.  I was told that an unwed mother's home was a place where mother and child could live with other mother's and their children. That may have been true up until the fifties, but this was the '80s. I arrived at the home in Aug 1982. It was the most depressing day of my life.   I was driven to the home by a Clinton County Children &Youth social worker named Jeanie Monoski. She was not nice. She acted as if driving me to this facility was cutting into her precious social calendar. At fifteen, I felt abandoned and angry.  It never occurred to me at the time that one of my parents should have been with me. Later,my dad said that they just couldn't deal with it. Isn't that nice?  It was all right to send me there.  They couldn't deal with it yet they expected me to flourish there.I was left there all alone. My parents and I were told that I would receive counseling.Counseling meant telling me that I was a disappointment to my family and that my baby deserved better than me. I've never had any other formal counseling.  Is that what adoption couseling is?  I was also told that my natural maternal feelings were selfish.  I was told that I must not really love my baby.  I believed it all.  That is a very lonley, deadly place to be.  My sister hired an attorney for me.  I kept my baby.  Children & Youth Services hassled me till my daughter was too old to adopt.  I graduated from high school and college.  I'm not special.  I am an example of what is possible.  I never regretted my choice.  Thank God for my sister.  She saved my daughter and me.  It only took one person to love us enough.