Conversations: Penny's odyssey to Greece and family

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Penny Mackison always knew that she was adopted.

There was no choice about that really.

Penny grew up in a small town in country Victoria

where everyone knew everything about everybody,

particularly her family.

Penny had been curious about her birth family as a child,

but it wasn't until she became a mother herself

that Penny felt the need to make connection

with the woman who had given birth to her.

Over the next 20 years they established a relationship.

Penny met her half-siblings and had a phone call

with her natural father before he passed away.

But Penny could never understand

why she didn't look like anyone in her natural family.

And then a DNA test that Penny did when she was 50

really confused her.

It turned out that Penny hadn't found her biological mother after all.

She had been accidentally swapped with another baby

in a Melbourne hospital in the 1960s.

Penny's incredible story is featured in this season

of the SBS program Every Family Has a Secret.

Hi Penny.

Hi Sarah.

Why was it that your adopted parents had no choice

but to be transparent with you

about how you came into their family?

Because that wasn't always the case in the 1960s.

No, it certainly wasn't.

And I think if they'd had a choice

they would have also been secretive about that.

But we lived in a very small community

in the Bucking District, Bucking South.

And my adoptive parents operated the local post office

and telephone exchange, which was a 24-hour service.

And people in the community were dropping in all the time.

So every day, multiple times, lots of people.

So people would have noticed.

So they couldn't actually conceal that they had adopted children.

How did your parents talk to you about your adoption

when you were young?

Well, we, well both my brother and I,

we can't remember not knowing that we were adopted.

We were told from such a young age.

So it was talked about as a matter of fact thing.

Oh, you were adopted.

But there wasn't a lot more information forthcoming really

because they said that they didn't really know much about our backgrounds.

In my case, the social worker who handed me over at the hospital,

at the Queen Victoria Hospital,

simply said that my mother was very young,

that she was at school when she got pregnant,

that she had me and then went back to school to continue her education

and that she came from the inner north of Melbourne.

Do you remember wanting to know more

or was that just, that was enough at the time?

Well, that was all I was going to get at the time.

But I never ruled out.

Mum would regularly, though not often,

but regularly ask if I thought I might search in the future

for my mother, my natural mother.

And I was very honest.

I said, I'm not sure.

I wouldn't rule it out because I was always curious.

So it was something that was always there.

I didn't have a burning passion to do it as a child,

but I was always curious.

You moved from this little town to the big smoke to Melbourne

to go to university and study social work.

Was the fact that you had this firsthand experience

of being adopted part of what drew you to that path, do you think?

Yes, definitely.

And feeling, well, feeling a lot of gratitude

for having such a good childhood and good parents

and feeling because of the role modelling

that my adoptive parents had shown

that I would like to give back to the community,

but was also an element of, hopefully,

helping women who might find themselves in the situation

that my natural mother did,

offering options hoping so that she wouldn't have to

feel forced to give up her child.

You got married when you were in your mid-20s and had your son.

Is that when you first looked into getting more information

about your natural parents?

Yes, it was the year we got married in 1989.

I felt like I at least needed to have some medical information.

So, yes, I applied for my adoption records.

And was that fairly straightforward, that process, Penny?

Yes, yes, it was although there was a wait at the time

because the adoption act that allowed this access to records

had only been passed in 1984.

It came into effect in 1986

and there was a long waiting list for people wanting to access their records.

And what did you do with that information at that point?

Well, when I got it, I, well, I obviously read it very closely

and some of it was a bit surprising.

I wasn't surprised that there was no father on my original birth certificate,

but I'd always sort of thought that because mum and dad had said

all the social worker told them that my mum came from the inner north of Melbourne,

I sort of had a thought in my head,

well, maybe she's got some European background.

But when I saw that her name was very Anglo, Anglo Celtic,

I thought, oh, okay, I wasn't expecting that.

So then I focused on trying to get my medical records

and I contacted the hospital,

but the Queen Vic had not long merged with Monash Health

and they just sort of followed me off and said,

oh, your records from 1963 when you were born

would have been purged when the hospitals merged.

So, you know, you're not going to have them.

So I didn't even put in a formal application

because I was sort of, you know,

led to believe that there were no records from the hospital.

You didn't attempt to make contact with your natural mother at that point,

but what happened, Penny, that made you reach for those records again?

We had a second pregnancy.

So my first, our first son was born in 1995

and our second pregnancy was twins

and they were born very prematurely at 22 weeks and five days

at the beginning of 1997

and that was, you know, the most devastating thing that had ever happened to me.

And I got very depressed.

I felt like I'd lost my way,

didn't know who I was, what I was doing here

and just really felt the need to ground myself

and connect with my natural mother

and sort of rebuild my identity really.

So how did you go about getting in touch in that place of grief, I guess,

with the woman who was on your records from the hospital?

Well, Vanish, the organisation formerly known as the Victorian Adoption Network

for Information and Self-Help,

they were very skilled at assisting people

and searching and help provide support through groups, support groups

and I went to them knowing, well, as a social worker I knew about them

and I went to them and they found very quickly

that my mother was actually in the same house that she'd come from

when she came to Melbourne

to go to the mother's and baby's home before she had me.

So we identified where she was very quickly

and then they provided some guidance about how to write a very brief

and sort of neutral letter about who I was looking for

in case it got into the wrong hands

or to not give too much away to protect her privacy.

So I wrote a letter and she replied almost straight away

and we established correspondence, contact, exchange very quickly.

And did you meet face to face quickly too?

No, not quickly.

And that was because while in her letters she told me that

she'd told her husband, who wasn't my father,

about having given up a child before she was married

she hadn't told her other children, five other children

and felt she needed time to, probably to muster up the courage really,

but to tell them.

So it was at least six, probably seven months after we started letter contact

that we met after she'd told her children.

And what was that meeting like?

It was sort of strange.

There was huge relief for me that it was going to happen

because I knew then that she definitely wasn't rejecting me,

although I was worried that I wouldn't be accepted

and I was worried that if her children didn't accept me

that I wouldn't be accepted either.

So that first meeting was a big relief, a huge relief

and I remember walking up the drive in the first really big hug

and the overwhelming feeling for me was relief.

Once you were introduced to her other children

was there a feeling of immediate connection with this new family?

No, no.

And partly that was because of their reactions to me.

It was like, who is this older sibling

that they've never heard about coming into their life

and a lot of uncertainty for them about what does this mean

and they weren't embracing it.

I could tell from the very first time I met

that it wasn't going to be easy

and I'd have to really focus on building trust

and building relationships with them.

I'm just struck by what a burden for the child or adult as you are

but the child who's seeking this connection

having to still kind of win people over or have that sense

that must feel like a really heavy burden

or an unjust burden in some way.

I think a lot of adoptees would say that

and feel like even though we've been the subject

of the decision to be relinquished

we often feel that we're intruding.

So yeah, it does feel like we have to take responsibility for that

and I have always taken responsibility for the decisions

I've made about when to search and not search

and at the time when I searched for example

I didn't tell my adoptive mother she was still alive then.

I didn't tell her until I'd established letter contact with my natural mum

and I then told my adoptive mum and she didn't like it.

She was very upset about it.

Really didn't want me to continue having contact with my natural mother

so I decided I would continue having contact

but to make mum feel secure in our relationship

her big fear was that I'd end the relationship with her

which to me was just astounding

that she could be so insecure about we were close

so it was hurtful but it was very real for her

so I could not only talk to her about having contact with my natural mum

but I couldn't talk to any of my other adoptive family either

in case they accidentally said something to my adoptive mum

so then I'm engaged in all this secrecy

to try and protect mum's feelings

so yeah it gets very complicated.

What about your natural father Penny

what could your birth mother tell you about him

or was there a chance to make contact there?

She did tell me about him almost in the first or maybe second letter

so she told me he was older than her

that he was separated at the time

that he didn't know she got pregnant

that it was a one night thing

and that he'd moved away

so she hadn't seen him since.

At the time she didn't know where he was living

but she thought it was interstate

but then a few years after we connected

and my natural mum

he actually moved back to the town where she was living

and he visited her

and so she told him about me

and I'd passed on if she ever did see him

please let him know I'd like to have contact if he's up for it

so she told him that gave him my contact details

and after several months

maybe even a couple of years I can't remember now

he did phone me

so I had one phone call with him

which was just a few months before he passed away.

What was that conversation like?

It was kind of strange

because I was just something out of left field for him

and he had several other, at least half a dozen other children

and several different mums

so I was trying to get a handle on how many siblings have I got

and he sort of said I could phone you again

so it was really he wanting to phone me

not giving me an opportunity to phone him

I think he phoned from a public telephone booth

I even had them still then

and it was like oh okay

so I felt like he might have done it as a favour to my mum

my mother, my natural mother

rather than because he felt any real obligation as such

and then he passed away before you had the chance to meet one another in person

but you did have this relationship with your natural mother and her other children

did you look like anyone in that family, Penny?

Not really, I mean I didn't look so incredibly different

that it was like it jumped out

but I looked through all the photo albums

I spent time with everybody

and I kept trying to see if any of my features were reflected in them

and I couldn't see any real resemblance at any age

so looking through all the photo albums when they were little

I just couldn't see myself anywhere

and my natural mum said oh but you look more like your father's family

and I said well okay, like him

and she'd say no more like his sister

so it was like okay

but she had no photos of anybody

and of course I didn't get to meet him

so I just felt like well I really need to see someone who I look like

but it was more than just even that

it was more I didn't have a personality like my natural mum and her family

like my interests

it was a struggle to find commonality

and whilst I loved them

and I felt they loved me

I just didn't feel that I was like them

and partly my head was saying

but you're a half sibling

you know you don't have to look like them

or there's going to be differences

but it was increasingly perturbing

and when I got to 15, I think birthdays with a zero on the end

we all tend to evaluate our lives at that point

and certainly at 50 I felt like well my life's at least half done now

and I didn't want to die wondering who I looked like

or who I was like

so that really spurred me to try and connect

with paternal family members to see if I was like them

So that's at the point that you decided to undertake a DNA test

and was that the aim to find people on your father's side of the family

through that test?

Yes, absolutely it was 2016

it was actually 53 by then

and I had been talking quite a bit with my friends

in the adoption community about what I could do

you know the commercial DNA test was starting to sort of get a bit of popularity by then

and look nothing ventured, nothing going

I felt like it was an investment in the future, planting a seed

So you did the test, you sent off your saliva

or whatever you needed to send to them

That's it

You got your results, what did they show?

Well they were just a big surprise

the first thing I did was you know rush to the page where it shows your DNA matches with your relatives

and there just weren't any close matches which was sort of what I'd expected

but their names they were, there were so many Greek names

more than half were like full ball Greek names

and I didn't recognise any of them, not one name

and even the Anglo-Celtic type names

there was just no names with anybody who I knew might be in the family

so that was like what is going on here

and then I went to the ethnic background page

the maps and the percentages of ethnic background

and I knew both my natural parents were their heritage was from the British Isles

so I had to you know fluff around and press some drop down boxes

and it just said 0% for English, Welsh, Irish, Scottish

all of that was just a big fat zero

and there was this huge amount of Greek

it was at the time it said 70% Greek

and I'm thinking well look I'm no geneticist

but I know that you get 50% of your DNA from each parent

you could only get 50% even if one's 100% Greek

and that's extraordinarily unlikely

so both my parents are Greek

I just thought this is a mistake

Yeah that swapped you saliva or something

or just sent you the wrong information

Exactly I thought they must have switched my sample in the lab

I emailed Ancestry Dana and said

look I do know I'm adopted

but I do know who my natural mother is

and I have all this information about my natural father

I've got a good idea what my background is

can you please check that you haven't switched my sample

accidentally and within really a couple of days

I got this quite long email back

sort of saying you know I was thinking

even then they must get this all the time

you know well people when they do DNA tests

they often get a surprise or surprises

and no we didn't switch a sample

blah blah blah blah blah

it was like oh okay

this is something so then I proceeded to try and talk

with my natural mum and half sister

about this strange result

What did you think might be the explanation

Well then it's funny how your mind thinks

I was thinking maybe my mum really doesn't know for sure

who her parents are

maybe she was adopted and doesn't know

and you know and maybe there is another potential father

that I've got who might have been Greek

so I was trying to talk through that with her

but it wasn't going down well

and they just really didn't want to talk about it

just sort of pooped at it

like I think the attitude was oh it's a spit test

you know it's not even accurate

but I sort of had to drop it

I mean I couldn't drop it

it was really rattling around in my head

but I was doing my PhD at the time

I thought I've got to focus on that

get that finished and then I can direct my energy

to this and try and sort this out

So what were the next steps

once you'd reached it sounds like a cul-de-sac

if you've got this surprising information

about your ethnic heritage

but your natural mother's not interested

in really having the conversation

I mean did you want her to have a DNA test

was that the next step

I would have loved if she or my half sister

had volunteered to have a test

but their attitude made me think

they're not going to do that

and not only will they not volunteer

but if I asked I reckon they'd say no

and it might be a really bad thing

in our relationship

so I really had that fear quite early on

that this was a pretty sensitive topic

and it's a risk it's a really big risk

so yeah I was pretty anxious about it

So what happened?

Well when the air started to clear with my PhD

and I thought right I was on track for that

I did another test myself with another company

just to check the results

and they were amazingly similar

to the ancestry DNA test result

and then I asked my husband and son

to also do tests

just to double check the accuracy

and of course it came back exactly as we expected

and then I thought well there's nothing for it now

I have to pluck up the courage and ask my natural mother

to take a DNA test

and to my surprise she agreed to do the test

And what did that test show Penny?

That we were not related

After 20 years of establishing a relationship

did it feel like a blow?

Yeah it was a blow to us all

and even though I intellectually had gotten to that point

where this was the only logical explanation

it was a blow

Yeah I think it hit everybody

it was probably a bigger blow for my natural

the person we thought was my natural mum

because she really hadn't got her head around it

it hadn't put any stock in my original test results

so I think it was a big shock

and I think when she agreed to do it

she thought well it's going to come back and show we're related

I really don't know

but I could see and feel that it was a big blow

What happened to your relationship after that revelation

that you were not the mother and daughter you had been told you were?

Well it went down pretty quickly

I tried to keep in contact with the person

who I thought was my natural mother

phoning and sending cards and things

and about a year later I got a reply

a card saying thank you for the flowers

but basically every time you have contact

it's painful and me and my family need to move on

so that meant without me and my husband and son

So really you were back at square one in a sense

what did you think or assume had happened

where was you thinking at that point?

My thinking was very much it was in the hospital

because it had to be before I was placed with my adoptive parents

my history from that point on was very well known

so you know I was in the hospital for three weeks

before I was handed over to them

and it had to be in that three weeks

So where did you go next to try and solve this mystery?

I went back to the Victorian Government's adoption information service

with all my genetic screenshots and the story

and said please find my real background records

please find my real mother

Were they shocked by your story?

They were horrified that this could possibly have happened

How could this have happened that you had been swapped with another baby

at the hospital? I mean was it an accident?

Well we might never know that

whether it was deliberate or accidental

but through every family has a secret

they were able to find a medical historian

who was able to explain exactly the sorts of baby identification processes

that were happening at the time

and I mean I always knew that the babies for adoption were put in one nursery

and the babies not for adoption were put in another

you know there was separate care

so I felt it was very unlikely

how I'd been swapped with a baby that went home

but I figured well the babies in the nursery

that were going to be adopted

I would always worry that we didn't have as much care

I mean whether that's founded or not is irrelevant

but the medical historian explained that

there were multiple opportunities every day for babies to be misidentified

because when they were born

they would have had a little luggage tag

basically a little brown paper luggage tag

tied to their wrist with a piece of brown string like a package

just with a bow

and on that little luggage tag would have been written

the mother's surname, the baby's date of birth and the sex

pretty much that was it

and then before leaving that birthing suite

the baby would have been bathed

that tag would have come off

and another one would have been put on

it would have been a little cotton band

written in the same Indian ink with the same information

but we're talking about a baby's wrist

so it had to be stitched on

and if the writing wasn't clear

or it wasn't close enough in the middle

or many opportunities for illegible writing

but also for it to be covered

when the nurse stitched this tag on

and of course babies notoriously lose weight

after they're born

and certainly babies separated from their mothers for adoption

did and I know why I did

so of course these little tags that have been stitched on

might not have been stitched very well

or the baby might have lost a lot of weight

and with their own hands and waving around

they would have been put off

so every day apparently multiple tags falling off

multiple opportunities for misidentification

so I guess the odds are it was a mistake

however the medical historian also

told me that all the records for my year of birth

all the medical records at the Queen Vic were destroyed

when they probably shouldn't have been

even according to the hospital's own records destruction policies

so that's a very strange thing

So Penny the adoption information service

who were helping you try to find your real natural mother

where did they start?

They went to the government archives

and found a register

that identified mothers

who had sought social work assistance

or who the social workers had visited

whose babies were being born were identified for adoption

so before we were even born

and I said to the AIS

you need to look for a Greek mother

not one with an Anglo name

because my mother is Greek

it's a fact we know this from the DNA

so they did and they found

a mother who'd had a baby girl

on the same day that I was born

and so very quickly they were able to

identify the name of the person they believed was my mother

so this was in the first five weeks of me

applying to them for my real records as I saw them

and they identified very quickly

that there was a Greek woman who had had a baby girl

and that it was probably me, they were very sure it was me

What could they tell you? Where was she now?

Well they could tell me a lot

but they couldn't tell me anything identifying

so because it was actually someone else's

the person I was swapped with, her adoption records legally

so it was quite complicated

so they couldn't tell me her name

they couldn't tell me her date of birth

they couldn't tell me anything like that

but they could tell me that she got married

later the same year I was born

to a Greek man here in Melbourne

that she'd had other children here in Melbourne

and then the family had gone back to Greece in the early 70s

and that she was still alive and living in Greece

Oh Penny, how did you receive that information?

Well that was like, as I say, five weeks after I went to them

so it was like I just wasn't expecting to have anything like that

I was expecting them to say, oh look we're searching

and it's going on but we're doing this now and we're doing that

I stupidly went to the interview by myself

and even though I worked in adoption for 12 years

and we always would recommend bringing a support person

I stupidly didn't take anybody to that interview

and I just remember literally feeling like I was going to float away

I was bouncing off the walls

and I remember getting down onto Burke Street

out of the office and thinking

I've got to go home

I'm not sure which direction to go in

I was floating, it was ridiculous

but then of course

I needed one of the identifying information

but oh, they were worried that

because this was such an unusual situation

it never happened before

that County Court might want DNA proof of the person in Greece

that they'd identified as my mother

before they made a finding that I could have the identifying information

it was all very convoluted

so I asked them to reach out to her in Greece

with a view to forming a relationship

trying to persuade her to do a DNA test

to confirm that we were mother and daughter

And what was her response?

It wasn't so good

she only spoke Greek

there was the issue of the language

so they used an interpreter

but that was very clunky

and it ended up that the manager of adoption information service

who's Greek-Australian herself ended up deciding

that the best way was for her to speak directly with my mother

so there were several conversations

over a period of time

and my mother confirmed that she had a baby

on the day I was born in Melbourne

and gave quite a bit of the story

but did not want to have contact with me

did not want to do a DNA test

just was really worried that other people would find out

that she'd kept this secret all her life

it was so shameful

so it was this mixture of it was the first time

she'd ever been able to talk to anybody about it

to the manager of adoption information service

but she just did not want to go any further

and did not want any contact

any more contact from the AIS or me

Oh Penny it must have felt like you were both so close

and so far at the one time

I mean did you consider just ending the search then

thinking well this is all that I'll know

or this is where this relationship ends

I couldn't

I had to respect that she wanted no contact

you know I didn't want to traumatise her anymore

and clearly it had been a very traumatic experience for her

but I needed to know if she was definitely my mother

and also knowing there were other children

half siblings

I felt they had a right to know about me

as I had a right to know about them

and I felt like I needed to pursue

trying to establish contact with them

so I asked the AIS to reach out to my siblings

and I guess they couldn't do with your mother's consent

did they do it with her knowledge

Yes they did tell her

her consent was irrelevant because

I'm an adult, they're adults

they also told her because I had by then decided to apply

because she wouldn't do a DNA test

I had decided to apply to the County Court

to get her identifying information

which was really the adoption records

of the person I was swore with

so of course they had to be contacted as well

and my mother in Greece

so the court was writing to them anyway

pointing all this stuff out and what I was trying to do

How tricky was it to get in contact with those siblings

though if it couldn't come through your natural mother

what was that process like of getting in touch with them?

Well yes the AIS tried to reach out through Facebook

and via phone

it's not easy to get in contact with people who only have mobile phones

if then you know there's no sort of central register

so there was basically no response

it was unclear whether they received the messages

whether they got them and ignored them

because they didn't know who they were coming from

it was just very unclear

and this had gone on for months and months

so it was at that point

when I decided to try another avenue

which was every family has a secret

when we just had this hit this brick wall

and there was nothing coming back from my siblings

then I thought right time to bring in the extra troops

and see if we can get any further

And you've taken things into your own hands in another sense

and actually gone off to Greece yourself

Well when it was confirmed that my mother was in Greece

and even at the point where it was clear she didn't want to have contact

I again respected that

I wasn't going to go to Greece and try and chase her up

unless she wanted that

but I felt a very strong need to visit Greece

and the places that were significant to her

the place where she grew up

which was an even smaller town than the one in which I grew up in Victoria

and the place where she lived

but I was really paranoid about not hanging around

and not being seen

because what if I did look like family

what if I did you know

and so yeah last year my husband and son

and I did go to Greece

and we did travel those places

we visited, we drove around and visited those places

and it was amazing

Greek people would start talking to me as if I was Greek

and one man actually said to me

after I'd said you know excuse me or something

he said oh and I said oh no that's all I've got sorry

and he said oh for some reason I thought you were Greek

and I thought oh that is just the best thing anyone has ever said to me

it made me feel very connected

and visiting those places

I picked up some pebbles off the place where my mum was living

and brought them back to Australia

because I thought well that's proof that I've been there

and I know where she's spent a lot of her life

even if I never get to meet her

at least I've got this

what about your siblings

did you find any sign of them when you were in Greece

well when we were

we thought we knew where one of my half brothers worked

that he had a business

so we actually went there very briefly

and thought we saw him

and his son

but we were very careful not to

but we also could hear that

they were only speaking Greek and no English

and so I sort of was not going to reach out at that point

well for many reasons

A. they didn't even know existed

he didn't know existed

B. we didn't have common language

C. would have been inappropriate at his workplace

but it was so tangible

I could almost touch that person

I could have almost touched him

so I came back

and met with the AIS and said

please try one more time

please try and reach out to this brother

at his workplace

I know you wouldn't normally do that

but if you send a letter to him

do your usual thing

be very careful about what you say and stuff

this might be the way to go

so they did that

later they hadn't had a response

the letter hadn't even arrived

things in Greece don't always

well it's not quite like here

in terms of things happening quickly

so they followed up with a phone call

and again very carefully

feeling this person out

I didn't say anything about adoption

I just said is your name so-and-so

oh yes that's my name and is your mother so-and-so

and this person goes oh no

that's my auntie

so at that point

I've got you want you know blah blah

the same name my cousin

that's his mother I can give you his phone number

so then

the manager of AIS phoned that person

and yes

he got a big shock

but was really open

to you know didn't sort of

at any point say oh go away

or this isn't believable

or just said oh my goodness

I need to talk to my siblings about this

and two weeks later

when the manager phoned back

they said yep yep we'll do a DNA test

to confirm

so that was like

just the best news

that I would know for sure

if this was my family

if that was my mother

and yes so of course

it was quite complicated

and every family has a secret and ancestral DNA

we're very helpful in getting the tests

to my siblings and

expediting all that as best they could

it took months before we actually

had the test results

they were saying oh you know you can contact us now

and here's our details and I just said

no I can't go through this again

I need to know for sure

through DNA before

I have contact

and the DNA results

confirmed that you had found

your family?

yeah I got the results

it was just amazing

it was just such a relief

it was fantastic

and then you know and immediately

it was like okay now we can organise contact

with these siblings so

it was knowing what was to come

as well as the confirmation

it was like

this is just bigger than Ben her now

this is we're off and racing

did you speak on the phone with them then

what was your first contact

with your siblings?

the first couple of contacts were a phone call

with the AIS manager

translating and then

because one of my siblings has

good English we then had

some calls by Viber you know

like FaceTime and of course

we'd already booked our second trip to Greece

so I was

actually going to be arriving

in like six weeks time and

they really

wanted

I wanted them to speak with our mother

and they wanted to speak

with her because she didn't

know that they now knew and that we had

DNA confirmation

so it was quite

tricky for them

they wanted to do it in a respectful

way as they could

well I told her they were now in contact

with me etc etc

had DNA confirmation and

she really got a shock

so they couldn't then say oh and by the way

she's now coming in three or four weeks time

they had to wait a bit longer

and then tell her that

so it was a lot for her to take in

in a pretty short space of time but of course

I was going there we were going to meet

my siblings and they were going to meet me

that was fine but they also

wanted me to meet her

and I wanted to meet her so

there was a fair bit of pressure on

to get the word out

so if you headed

off to Greece just a few weeks after

receiving this information

what happened once

you arrived in Greece but this time

with the names and

phone numbers of family

well more than that this time

I was going on a new passport

with my new name and my name

is now hyphenated with

my mum's Greek name

so yeah I travelled not only

to meet my family

but with my name

that integrates my mother's maiden name

and what was that reunion

in person like with these

siblings

it really was

very

it was very emotional

I didn't cry

my emotion was just

full bore excitement

I really felt connected to them

even though in some ways

they're small

we look quite different in some ways

I'm tall but when they looked at me

they saw

their mother and their mother's family

so it was almost that

they were sort of the reverse

mirroring they saw in me

their family

but they were so warm they were just

so embracing and the first

day was just with two of my siblings

and we just had oh I don't know

five hours sitting on the couch beside each other

just talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk

which was sort of complex

because my brother

who was there doesn't speak much English

but he just smiled all the time

like we were just so happy

to be in each other's company

what could they tell you about how

the conversation with your mother

had gone were they

able to assure you that you'd get

to meet her or was that still unknown

still unknown

they just kept saying in the very

great way it'll be fine it'll be fine

we're gonna have a family lunch tomorrow

it'll be fine it'll be fine so I really

wasn't sure right up until I arrived

at the aunt's

place where we were having this lunch

it was gonna be there

as you're looking around that crowd of faces

was your mother there

yes yes

that's when I lost it I gave her

you know we had a big hug

it was sort of strange I walked in I'm going

oh okay so it was almost like a panic

which one's my mum I was like oh don't be

silly in my head my head's going

don't be silly it's the one in the dark

clothing she's a widow don't be

how could you have not you know

why would you be looking at the other one

but it was like oh I was

also trying to take in who do I look like

you know I'm standing in the doorway

looking around you know where's my mum

where's my mum and the

looks that I got it was like they'd seen a

ghost my mum and my aunt

they just like

happy but like whoa

and then my aunt found

this photo

very quickly she just pulled out this

photo of my ya ya

you know their mother and

I could I just was the spit

of her in the face

and here gosh my

hair I wear it long

it was actually about the same length as hers was

in this photo and

I like I just it would just hit me in the face

but it hit them in the face too

there was just no question I was a part

of this family and what sort of state

was she in Penny you know this had been

such a shock for her and

how old was she

early 83, 83

look it was a shock I think

she was really

working hard to try and keep it together

herself you know at one point she walked

out of the room came back

and you know I could see she was

working very hard to keep it together

and of course I had blub started blubbing

by then which

was it took me a while to get myself back together

I think I'd even the excitement

of the day before meeting two of my siblings

it was um

you know I was just so excited already had phone calls

with them I'd already seen their faces they'd seen mine

that was exciting

but yes

meeting my mum and not even knowing until

I got there if she was going to be there it was

pretty big it was um

well it was as big as it gets

did she want to

talk about the circumstances of your

birth with you

I'm sure she did but she couldn't

cause she speaks greek and I

didn't I speak a bit more now

but not enough

because I have that conversation yet

I'm working hard on it but um

yes I know

we both want to have that conversation

what could she tell you about

those years that you'd been separated

did she thought she'd never see

you or ever hear from you again

hmm yeah

I mean she was very concerned to know

that I had a good upbringing

and

that I was placed with good people

and she thought she had met my

mother

she really thought she had met her

around the time she signed

the consent

I said I really

this is through family members who are

translating for us I said no

I really don't think you did I think

you might have met the adoptive mother

of the person I was swapped with

and that was a really hard thing for everyone

to deal with it was like it was one thing

to be adopted

as a newborn but it was another thing to

be swapped in the hospital and to have gone through

all this other stuff so

she said no no I met her

I met your other mother

so I happened to have a photo on my

phone of probably the first photo

of me

in my adoptive mother's arms and so

I got it up on the phone and I handed

it over and said did you meet this woman

and she looked at it really really

carefully and said

no

and she was just so disappointed

like

the whole body language

she had thought she had met the woman

who was taking care of her child

it was just so disappointing to her

so then I worked really hard to reassure her

that I had a good life and

that you know my adoptive mum and dad

were great people

but yeah it was a big blow to her

but she also said that

every time she went into a church

ever since I was born the first candle

she lit was for me

so

that was

very very powerful

was she happy to be found

I think so

yes I do think so

I was able to have

two visits with her while I was in Greece

this last time

we met in the first week when I was there

but I was there for a month and you know

I went away with friends

visited a few places and then went back

at the end I left a few days free

in case I could visit again

and that time she was

so much more relaxed and warmer

not that she wasn't warm the first time

but it was just

you could tell that she had

gotten more comfortable with the idea

and you know it was

relieved that her children had embraced me

and they weren't judging her at all

these things happen

etc and I was

trying to explain that I've reclaimed my regional identity

and I said you know look

my passport, my driver's license

and I just pulled it out because it's in my phone case

and

handed it to her

and she really studied it

and then she said to

one of my relatives to tell me

tell Penny I'm really pleased

that she reclaimed

my family name because

there aren't many of that

name left anymore

so she was really proud of that

and really proud that I had such a good education

and

there was pride

I think it was very hard and she was very on edge

the first meeting

but I could even see by that second visit

that it was sitting much better with her

and she

for me over the years it took time

to digest the information

about who my family was supposed to be

let alone who it really is

it takes time to really chew it over

and go through the emotions

so she had really

a lot of time in the end to do that

before meeting me

so I think she's done an amazing job

I think she's amazing

amazingly resilient and

yeah I'm just

so pleased that

she's accepted me

so does this mean the end of secrets

about

who you are in the world

well it is complicated

nothing's ever straightforward in these stories

so

her maternal family

well

the ones who know

that's all fine

but

her husband's family

don't know, haven't been told

won't be told

it's not

that straightforward so for example

I can't just go and stay in the village

because questions would be asked

nearby is fine

and whilst she's very happy to see me

so I am embraced

but I'm not living there

I have to respect

that not everybody will know

and if I'm ever introduced

we're going back next year

I'm going back twice actually

but if I'm introduced to somebody

I need to be very careful about

if I'm asked questions I might just be

the distant relation from Melbourne

so it's great

but it's also not

simple either

you say that you're learning Greek

Penny how tough is that

at this point

it is tough

I haven't got an ear for languages

and yeah I'm finding it hard

I started back in

2019

I think I did two terms

I've now into my third or fourth again

so up to five terms

and I'm using two apps as well

and I've now got a cousin here

who is helping me

with my conversation

I think you've shown that you're a woman

of determination Penny

so if anyone can crack it I reckon it's going to be you

why is it so important to you

to speak the language

well I really want

to have those conversations with my mother in Greek

not through anybody

I don't think she wants

anybody else there I think we need to have

some conversations privately

and the only way to do it is

if I learn Greek or enough Greek

that we can at least have a

basic conversation so

you know mum's not young

and she hasn't been well

and I just

feel the need to a very

strong need to do that and

yeah so I am

I'm committed I'm finding it tough

but you know I've just got a press on

it has been

such a journey of

highs and lows of

disappointments of fresh hopes

has it been worth it

for you? Oh absolutely

well

if you value the truth

at all it has to be

but for me

as a person who grew up knowing I wasn't

the biological child of

the people who raised me

it was always going to be a journey

I mean as a child you don't know for sure

but you know I was

open enough to not ever rule it out

and of course things happened

that drove me to do it which is very

common in people who are adopted

there's a life event that

sort of feels like the rugs been pulled

out from under you and you feel this huge

need to build yourself

back together and rebuild your identity

and I mean that's a thing that people do

over their lifetime anyway whether or not

they're adopted but for me

there were these important events

that drove me to find

the truth and absolutely

I don't regret the decisions

I've made to pursue that

and I'm so pleased I did it

and you know I was never going to die

wondering. I really hope

you get to have those conversations

with your mum in Greek

and thank you so much for sharing

this extraordinary story

with us on conversations.

Thank you very much Sarah.

Penny's story is featured in the

SBS TV series

Every Family Has a Secret

and she's also about to release her own

book called Greek actually.

Thank you.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.