AUSTRALIA
Giving A Child Away
Feb 2001 – 55’
Producer: Caitlin Shea
Researcher: Caitlin Shea
BACKGROUND:
When a Queensland couple - Darren and Joanna Link - discovered they were to have an unplanned fifth child, they came to a momentous decision. Darren had a married sister in America with everything money could buy except the child she'd always wanted. So when Darren and Joanna offered her their own new baby as a gift of love, it was an answer to all her prayers. But neither couple anticipated the repercussions, consequences that would come to a head when they were all reunited.
FILM STARTS AT 3.15
3.49
JOANNA LINK: I'm looking forward to seeing Rick and Tracey. Sydney I'm dying to see because she'd be changed a lot since last time we saw her. But I'm having my regrets too. I'll be thinking of, look what I'm missing out on, having her around me, and seeing them as a happy family.
4.14
TRACEY HAZAN: We're very excited about coming back to Australia on our holiday. I'm very excited about seeing Darren and Jo, of course, and their children. And of course, there is a little bit of apprehension there about how we're all going to come together as a family group.
4.43
DARREN LINK: Tracey and I were never really close when we were kids. We fought a lot. It's only since we've had.....you know, I've shared this with Tracey that Tracey and I have become really close. And it's been something we've missed from our childhood. It really helped us bond, I guess.
5.12
JOANNA: We lead a very different life to Tracey and Rick. They live in Chicago. We live in Gladstone.
5.31
TRACEY: I really love living in America. It's a wonderful country. And it's definitely a land of opportunity.
5.44
RICK HAZAN: About ten, twelve years ago I started my own business. I do group travel around the world for the mature audience. I was escorting a group down to Australia. Tracey was the manager on duty. So she actually checked me in and I, in turn, checked her out. We've been very fortunate. The business has worked out well. I've always felt hard work guarantees nothing but lack of it guarantees failure. Worked hard - Tracey helped a lot - got lucky. I think you always make your own luck. And fortunes rained over, and we're able to enjoy some nice things in life.
6.33
DARREN: We run a small cabinet-making firm here in Gladstone. We have four children It's a working class town. There's not a great deal to do here so you try and make the most of what we've got. When we were having our first child, I couldn't imagine what it was gonna be like to have children of me own. And after having Fletcher...I just couldn't imagine life without the children. I guess that's why we just kept coming back and having another child. They're really good kids.
7.30
TRACEY: I always wanted to be a mum. I remember being a teenager and holding relations' babies and my friends' babies and just...crying just imagining me to be a mum. Of course, my mum never had any problems getting pregnant. Darren, my brother, already had a big family. My sister was talking about having a family. So when I couldn't fall pregnant when we were trying the old-fashioned way, it was just devastating to me. Luckily, a little bit in the back of my mind after having my accident as a child - one of the first questions my mum asked the doctors was whether I would have problems having children. And the doctors said, "We'll never know until she tries, but we don't think so.”
8.29
DARREN: When we were younger, Tracey and I were playing at a friend of mine's place here in Gladstone. We made this bit of a cubby and we had this ladder we put up. This ladder was made of steel and had one end that was really long.
8.54
TRACEY: I was eight years old. I was the first one up on the table so, being a kid, I was jumping up and down, teasing my friends that I was up here first - probably teasing my brother more so because there was a lot of competition with us. And I overbalanced and I fell on it, and it pierced my body.
9.20
DARREN: The longer end of the steel bar went through her backside and came out near her shoulder, which was quite severe. For a while there, it was touch and go. I blacked a lot of that out. I actually saw it happen. And I was only about five years old, six years old.
9.45
DARREN: Thank God, Tracey recovered from that, but that basically was the reason why she has trouble having children.
9.54
TRACEY: There is a lot of internal scarring with my ovaries and my tubes. But we tried everything. They put me on a lot of hormones, they did internal testing - they did everything. One of the things that they discovered was I wasn't producing eggs. So they thought, well, maybe we needed to get an egg donor. And then that's when the first part of my wonderful family stepped in. My sister who, at the time, was 18, came over to America and she was an egg donor for us. I went through some IVF procedures and unfortunately, for whatever reason, I just did not get pregnant. We thought, Okay. We're gonna try this, this and this, and then if this doesn't work, we'll go to adoption. We wanted a family, and we looked at, if we can't have our own children, we would adopt. That was always an option for us. We never thought anything of it because as far as we're concerned, it is a child. It's a child.
11.05
RICK: If you want to have a baby by natural means, you can't always have that. If you want to form your family via adoption, you can always have a family. And our goal was to have a family.
11.17
TRACEY: We contacted an agency that helped us do an adoption plan. And what we did - we actually advertised. And we found a birth mother. We were very involved with her pregnancy. She ended up giving birth to a little boy. Unfortunately, the adoption fell through which was, as you can imagine, absolutely devastating to us after going through, everything that got us to this point. Um, we're talking about four years?
11.52
RICK: Yeah. About a month later, though, your brother called.
11.55
TRACEY: Yes. And, yeah, it was the most incredible thing that had happened to us. Out of the blue, a month after we had this terrible news, my brother called and he said, "We wanna do something, Trace."
12.16
DARREN: Our fifth child was a bit of a surprise. Joanna came in and told me that she was pregnant. I was really happy - I was really happy about it - can't say I wasn't happy, because we just live for our kids. Jo is the most wonderful mother you could ever wish for a child. She just loves kids.
12.43
JOANNE: I was very shocked when I found out I was pregnant for the fifth time. Making it that it would have a lot of strain on Darren and I, because we'd not so long had a baby - Kyle was still a baby - and the strain on Chloe and Fletcher and Dylan, and not being able to pay attention to them as much as I would if I did have another child.
13.13
DARREN: This is what really surprised me - she came to me and said that she wasn't sure about having another child. We felt guilty that here, we could have another child, and... like, we've got four kids already and we could just have another child like that, and here are Rick and Tracey who were having so much trouble to have a child. Just seemed so unfair. I'm not sure who brought up the idea of adopting this baby to Tracey. But it was like a mutual agreement. We thought about it for quite a while before we even approached Tracey with the idea.
14.08
JOANNA: Well, Darren rang her and spoke to her and said that I was pregnant and worried about how I was going to cope with the children and having another baby. Darren said, 'would you be interested in adopting the child and having the child?' And they thought about it and rang us back within, like, half an hour. That was how long it took them.
14.27
TRACEY: This phone call - it was like manna from heaven. I mean, of course, you know, you always want your own child, and I wanted a baby. This, to me, was the next best thing to having my own, natural born child - my niece.
14.51
JOANNA: I thought about it for a couple of days. Darren was thinking about it as well. And then he just left it all up to me to decide what I wanted to do. When I rang Tracey back and told her that I was going to adopt the child to her, she was overwhelmed. She was crying and screaming. She didn't know what to think, whether it was all... she had to pinch herself. She said that she had to pinch herself about five times to see if it's real, you know. And I said, "Yes, it's real."
15.27
DARREN: The reason for doing what we done was to see Rick and Tracey happy and have what we have - which is a wonderful family - and to enjoy a child.
15.48
TRACEY: I was concerned, but more so for their feelings. Here they had their own family, and they were... This decision that they were going to make would affect not only their family unit - our whole extended family - knowing that they were going to have a child that, number one, was going to live in another country that they wouldn't see that often. A whole gauntlet of emotions went through me. But I have to admit the biggest one was just excitement. My dreams were finally, after all this disappointment, coming true.
16.41
JOANNA: And then I convinced myself to...that it was Tracey's baby. Kept in communication with her the whole time. She rang me up every third day, constantly saying, "How's my baby?" I'd say, "Your baby's good," and I just coached myself that I was going to be its auntie. This was at three months pregnant. And the kids knew that we were going to adopt it, so they knew right from the beginning. And we were all happy, but sad at the same time. Well, I was. The kids just thought they were going to America for a holiday.
17.22
DARREN: We still weren't sure if we actually done the right thing. The further we got down the pregnancy, the more doubts I think we had. We never let on this to Tracey and Rick.
17.41
TRACEY: There was never any doubt in my mind that they wouldn't go through with it. And that probably made it so much harder for them, so much harder - more so than I could imagine, than Rick could imagine, anyone could imagine. This is something that you just don't give and take back.
18.10
JOANNA: I always wanted another little girl like Chloe, the one that I've got. But when I found out behind Darren's back that I was having a little girl, it made me have a second decision on what I was gonna do - whether I was gonna adopt the child or not, because finding out it was a little girl was really upsetting. But I had to come to terms with it. I'd promised them the baby no matter what it was. They were gonna have a child. That was the hardest part for me to deal with, knowing that it was a little girl and Tracey was gonna get that little girl that I always wanted.
19.13
RICK: Well, once the decision was made that we were going to form a family with Jo's and Darren's help, we had to figure out how to do this - legally, ethically, any way. And Australian laws are a certain way, American law's a certain way. And the best way was, frankly, having Jo come to America and give birth to Sydney IN America, because if you're born in the US, you are automatically a US citizen.
19.51
JOANNA: When I got over there I had to have counselling straight away just to give me pointers how to deal with adopting a child. It wasn't so hard being in the family, they explained to me, because I'd always see the child.
20.11
Knowing that our child was going to go to somewhere where it was going to not want for anything and be loved is a real special feeling, because you know that your child's gonna be safe the whole time.
20.31
I became very close to Rick and Tracey. Every time the baby would kick Rick would say, "Could I feel it?" And I felt special that I was carrying their child. And they were just so happy the whole time I was over there.
20.56
Just experienced the joy that they had. Every time I'd go for a doctor's visit, Tracey'd come in. And the doctor one day shocked her and said, "We've gotta get Darren over here soon as possible because Joanna's starting to have the baby. "Tracey just stood there and cried. I remember the look on her face. They said to her, "You're gonna have a baby soon," and she just couldn't believe it.
21.19
TRACEY: I was just stunned. I mean, I was finally going to be a mum. And...It was great. It was unbelievable.
21.29
DARREN: To be honest, I don't think.. right to the.. right to the very point of Jo giving birth, I always had a doubt in my mind whether we actually thought this through properly. The most wonderful part of it was at the hospital in Chicago. It was real important for me for Rick to see the birth.
22.03
Why it was important for me for Rick to see the birth was he could appreciate Sydney more, and the miracle of life in a child being born. It makes you realise what your wife goes through to have that child, and how selfish I've been, and the pain.
22.42
JOANNA: When I had Sydney, Tracey was there to hold the baby for the first time so then it would smell her as a mother and Sydney would know who her mother was straightaway.
22.58
TRACEY: I fed her her first bottle. I was looking down at this wonderful little.....my baby, my child, my daughter. It was incredible.
23.19
DARREN: I remember Rick and Tracey just breaking down crying when Sydney was born, and all emotions come flooding in from everywhere. And I just got caught up in the excitement of Sydney being born, and had forgotten all about the adoption. Then I realised that this wasn't our child anymore and just broke down crying with Jo.
24.03
As soon as Jo was well enough to leave the hospital, we stayed in a hotel for three days to give Tracey and Rick a chance alone with the baby. They were probably one of the three most emptiest days of our lives. During the three days we were trying to think, trying to reassure ourselves that we'd done the right thing. Fortunately, we had a counsellor quite often, which Tracey and Rick had organised, and she was wonderful. She helped us through it. And we couldn't have done it without her. But basically, we...we just couldn't wait to get out of there.
24.51
TRACEY: For me, it was the most joyous time of my life. But of course, I always thought about what Darren and Jo were going through too, especially Jo.
25.01
RICK: They were great about it, though. It's hard for them, but they didn't really share too much with us about how hard it was. That was part of their, you know...One of them has carried on, you know. And it was good.
25.23
JOANNA: We knew in our minds that we were going to adopt it but you get three days before you have to sign the adoption papers. The day came. Rick came and picked us up and Tracey watched the children at the motel.
25.40
DARREN: I think in one way we didn't want to sign them and, on the the hand, we wanted to sign them and just have it all done. We just wanted to get out of there. It was...I don't want to sound callous, but we loved Sydney so much. She's a really special child to us. But the more we saw of her, the harder it was.
26.09
JOANNA: The hardest part was signing the adoption papers. But then we realised that the child was gone - Sydney was gone from us. It was Sydney Hazan, not Sydney Link. So...it was all done and over, really. It felt like...that something had gone from me that day, but I gave them something lovely. Seeing Tracey and Rick so happy with her - she was a Hazan and they were one family, one whole family, that they couldn't even buy. We gave her to them as a gift.
27.09
DARREN: We got back and it was difficult, because Jo would quite often break down and cry. And I'm not the strongest person as it is, and I had to sort of be strong for Jo, and the kids - I had to be strong for the kids, because they didn't understand exactly what was going on. Fletcher just played up the whole time, and he's always a really good kid. And he just played up the whole time. I think that was his sort of way of releasing.
27.52
FLETCHER LINK: I felt really sad. I was just gonna say there, "Can we keep her?" and stuff. But I knew I couldn't see her because they don't have a baby.
28.04
CHLOE LINK: When Mum gave the baby to Auntie Tracey I was sad, and I wanted it to be my sister.
28.25
JOANNA: There is lots of good times and there's lots of bad times. Sometimes, when we receive photos in the mail, they're happy times but they're sad times as well, because I was thinking what it'd be like if we had her now.
28.43
DARREN: We really enjoy hearing from Tracey. Tracey rings quite often, letting us know what Sydney's doing, what she's looking like, how she's changed in her looks. And even though we love to hear about Sydney all the time, it makes it even harder. On the same token, we don't wanna hear from Tracey. We don't wanna hear how well she's going.
29.12
We realise that with every word Tracey speaks of how wonderful she is, it makes us feel more and more guilty about what we've done. And what we've lost.
29.32
JOANNA: There's not a day that goes past that I don't think about her. Not a day at all.
29.52
RICK: She's 18 months old now, and every day is an adventure. It makes you, when you go to work, wanna run home. It's a wonderful feeling. The first time she says 'Dad', she holds her arms out to you and grabs you. All those are really special things.
30.23
TRACEY: I never take her for granted for one second. Even when she's at her naughtiest which, at 18 months, she's just starting to push her buttons, I mean, I still look at her and think what an incredible gift I have in my life.
30.45
RICK: They did it for Tracey. I mean, Darren did it for his sister. Jo probably did it because of her love for her husband, and I was the beneficiary for loving my wife. So I get...The best end of everything is that I get the joy of Tracey and Darren's love. That's what it was. I mean, they know the joy of parenting, and they wanted us to experience it too. And we now have.
31.13
TRACEY: It's hard to put into words how grateful...no, grateful's not a word. What they did for us...You know, there's no words that I can verbalise to explain how I feel. Um, I will, you know, this is a bad word but I can't think of a better word, I will never be able to repay them.
31.46
This is a gift of love and it goes beyond the boundaries of love. It's just an incredible, amazing thing that they did, and something that will...that's bound us so much closer. The most wonderful thing about this is that in her beautiful little face.....I see my family, so I don't feel like I'm so far away. I mean, I look in her face and I see my brother, I see my sister, I see my mum and dad. And it's like having them there in America with me.
33.01
DARREN: We enjoy the simpler things in life. So, Sydney's going to sort of have the best...better than any of my child. Like, the best...best schools, the best medical service, the best...best of everything, which I could never, ever have given her. So, I look at that as being pretty fortunate.
33.51
JO: There was lots of rumours getting around Gladstone that we had sold our child for $50,000, which is very untrue. I don't think people realise how much it hurts your family that when they do say rumours like that. Money is not an issue in our lives at all. It's for love, not money.
34.15
DARREN: You can't put a dollar value on a child's life. I hate to disappoint some of the people in Gladstone, but there's no truth to that whatsoever. And people who really know Jo and I should know there's no way that could ever happen.
34.40
A year passed and they came to visit us in Gladstone, which was part of the healing process. We were both very anxious and Rick and Tracey, I can imagine, were very hesitant too.
34.53
JO: Darren and I were thinking positively, "We're seeing our niece." We think on the lines that she is our niece. But when she got off the plane with Rick and Tracey, she had the biggest smile on her face, and that made us feel satisfied that she was happy. And she went to us straight away, she gave us all a big cuddle, and wanted us all straight away, so it was all lovely. The kids just loved her.
35.18
DARREN: It just healed. It did so much for Jo and I, I think, to see that she was happy. To see how happy Rick and Tracey were as well, at ease they were. Then I felt like we'd definitely made the right decision.
35.39
JO: Very, very sad to see her go, because I knew I wouldn't see her for a long time, but we made a promise to each other that we'd see each other once a year, that was the promise that we made to each other, so I know there won't be a year that goes by that we don't see her. But this year, we might be able to see her twice, which will be great, so hopefully in November, we'll all meet up and see each other, it'll be great fun.
36.18
TRACEY: This time, she's 18 months old, and she's her own little person now, and she's going through a very clingy stage right now, so I'm a little bit worried about how Darren and Jo will feel when Sydney won't run up to them with open arms. And, I think this is going to hit home to them that, you know, yes, this is Rick and Tracey's child.
38.39
JO: Oh, Darren, can't you see that? There is a photo of me at that age, Darren, and she's the splitting image of me, hey?
38.45
DARREN: She is like a little doll, isn't she?
38.48
JO: Oh, Darren... Sydney...? Come here, come here, baby. No, you don't want to. She's so tired, honey, she is. Sydney? Hello! Hello. Oh, she's so cute...
39.20
DARREN: She looks different to the other kids, though, doesn't she?
39.27
JO: That was great.
39.28
DARREN: It was really different, though, like, it was sort of hard, wasn't it? Like, that she didn't come straight to us, sort of thing. That made it quite difficult.
39.38
JO: She will.
39.38
DARREN: Yeah, give her time to settle down.
40.16
JO: It's hard for me, because I still feel like a mother, and, no matter what, she still feels like mine. But I just find it hard when they say, "Oh, go to Daddy", or "Go to Mummy".
40.30
DARREN: Yeah, you're just about to put your arms out.
40.32
JO: And I go...I go to put my arms out, and I think, "No, it's not my child."
40.42
DARREN: Whenever I see the kids long for Sydney it makes me feel pretty regretful.
40.59
JO: Just seeing the children want Sydney and cuddle Sydney and know her as her sister and her cousin, that's the hardest part. They want her to be her sister, and seeing Fletcher want to be with her all the time, and Chloe...
41.15
DARREN: Actually, I think it was Chloe, Tracey said Chloe come up to her the other day, oh, just yesterday, and asked if Sydney was her sister or her cousin. Did Tracey tell you that?
41.28
JO: No. What did...?
41.31
DARREN: And Tracey nervously said to me, "Oh, what should I have said?" And I said, "Oh, you could tell her she's both, you know. "Yeah. Tracey, "Oh, yeah, I did." I said, "Oh, yeah, that's fine then."
41.40
JO: That's what we still reassure them, that she is her sister...their sister and her cousin. Both, 'cause she's a part of us, as well.
42.13
DARREN: Yeah, it must be hard for them to grasp. They must get a bit confused about exactly what role she plays in their lives, you know? But, um, they're the sort of things that you don't think of.. When you plan to do this. After Sydney was born and the adoption all went through, we thought, "Well, that's it", but it just never really stops, does it?
42.41
JO: It doesn't. It goes on and on and on. It'll probably go on until she's 18, 19, or for the rest of her life.
42.49
DARREN: Just little things...
42.50
JO: We'll always be there, and she will.
43.05
RICK: Darren and Jo should be the aunt and uncle, but a very special aunt and uncle, and Sydney will know at some point, when Sydney's ready to know, that these were her birth parents, and she has biological siblings. Um, we're not embarrassed, quite the opposite, we're proud of it. Openness is great, and there's a lot of good things about that, so they'll be very special uncles and aunts. And they seem to be very good with that, by the way too, they seem very happy with that.
43.58
DARREN: I consider Sydney my daughter. I'll never, ever, no matter what anyone says... She could never not be my daughter. I could never cut the cords clean like that. She'll always...she'll always be my daughter. She'll always be...It's sort of difficult to hear Tracey and Rick say, "Uncle Darren". That's really hard for someone, getting used to, or "Aunty Jo".
44.08
JO: I know she's loved, but it's just, there's nothing like a mother's bond. That's what I keep telling myself - I've got something special with her, that no-one else has got.
45.07
TRACEY: When Sydney's ready to hear about how she came to be in our lives, definitely, she will know. And she will know the great love and sacrifice that Darren and Jo made for...for Rick and I, for us.
45.33
DARREN: Even to this day, we still have doubts whether we've done the right thing, or not. Um, I really worry about Sydney one day asking the question, 'Why?' Her brothers and sisters are here in Australia... why she was given away. And hopefully, she'll never have to feel to ask that question, as long as we keep it open and loving. So she feels like we're just one big, extended family. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do if she ever asks me. First of all, I'd convince her that we really loved her, and that was one of the hardest decisions we ever made in our lives, but we felt she was going to a good home, and she was still in the family. She was still part of us.
47.09
JO: In a way, I'm glad we're going. Only seeing her a couple of days, because you do grow closer and closer. I did make a terrible mistake for myself, because of the grieving I've gone through, but I made a good...a good choice for Tracey and Rick. But, I would never do it again, never. Seeing Sydney again has just brought all those memories back up again. I do miss her very much. She'll always be a part of me and I'll always love her like she's mine. No matter what, she'll always be mine. And, I'm crying, I just miss her dreadfully.
48.38
TRACEY: One thing that I never thought about in this whole process was the guilt that I would feel. I thought that I would be so joyous, of course, which I am, but I feel guilty, too. I feel guilty about the pain that's driven a wedge between us, which I think it has. I feel guilty about being happy with Sydney sometimes, because I know how much it's hurting them, seeing us, and I could see Jo, especially, when Sydney came to me and called me 'mummy', I mean, that must have killed her. They must have really, really hurt her, because it just emphasised everything she lost. And that hurts me to know that she's hurting like that, because I feel guilty about my joy, because...my joy, it came at such a price for them.
Ultrasound Examination
50.11
Doctor: Your baby's looking out, he's got a little nose, little lips. Little hand coming out, toes. The little leg going up to the knee.
50.24
DARREN: Yeah, we decided to have another child, to end it all, I think, take our minds of Sydney. I know that sounds heartless, but we just feel there's an open wound that this, I think, would heal it, especially for Jo's sake, as well.
50.41
JO: I so desperately want this child that I'm having now to be a little girl, for Chloe's sake and my own sake, so we can have the joy of a little girl that one.....one like the one that we lost.
51.00
FLETCHER: I'm really excited 'cause Mum and Dad is having a baby, and I hope it's a girl, not a boy, because we've got too much...too many boys in our family.
51.10
TRACEY: When I first heard that Darren and Joanna were expecting again, my first reaction was shock, I have to be honest. I was very surprised, um, but I think it's a wonderful thing. I think that this will really help the healing process with them. And I'm excited I'm going to be an aunty again.
51.31
DARREN: No baby could ever replace Sydney, we're well aware of that, all the kids are. By the same token, we feel that we really need to have another child, but Sydney is always in our hearts.
51.52
TRACEY: We're on our way to working on getting Sydney a new brother or sister.
52.10
TRACEY: So right now, I've got some little eggs sitting in the freezer, that's, um, Larissa, my sister, is the biological mother, and Rick is the biological father. So, right now, we're looking for a surrogate, we've just contacted an agency that are going to help us, and we figure they're pretty much close to matching us up to someone, so hopefully, in a year, we'll have a sibling for Sydney, which is very exciting.
52.38
DARREN: About a month ago, we closed the business and moved out to a larger house on a couple of acres. Um, just for more room for the extra baby and the kids to run around.
52.57
JO: I can't express how happy I am to have another child. I'm due February 20th, and we're all just longing for that day to happen.
53.15
TRACEY: I think as Sydney gets older, it'll get a lot easier. I think once Darren and Jo have the next child, that will really help their healing process, I think, and even though nothing will ever, ever replace Sydney in their minds, it will help ease the pain, and for that fact alone, it's going to be a very, very special child.
53.46
DARREN: I think it's created a bit of anxiety between Tracey's family and my family. I think we both didn't realise the way we're really feeling. It's, sort of, when things are so emotional, I don't know how other people feel, but I sort...I clam up a bit and keep to myself, you know, and unfortunately, on this occasion, I probably should've talked a bit more to Tracey, so that she knew exactly how I was feeling, but in one way, it's good, this has sort of put everything out in the open, and we all realise now exactly how it's affected both sides.
54.29
TRACEY: There's a lot of consequences that, um, none of us ever thought of. Like, hindsight is worth 20/20, and it's been an interesting procession of all these different emotions and thoughts, and things that have happened between all four of us, I'm sure, but the overwhelming thing is Sydney, and how wonderful she is and what a special little girl she is, and what special people Darren and Jo are.
ENDS
CREDITS:
Producer: Caitlin Shea
Camera: Anthony Sines
Sound: Marc Smith
Editor: Roger Carter
Specialist contributor: Caroline Jones
Theme: Charlie Chan
Camera: Quentin Davies
Sound: Scott Taylor
Editing: Kent Gordon/ Ian Harley
Compile Editor: Brad McCrystal
Post Production Audio: Tim Pearce
Film Research: Robert Hodgson/ Lyndal Osbourne/ Helen Scales
Production Assistant: Tom Brogden
Producer’s Assistant: Fiona Dempster
Production Manager: Anita Atkins
Associate Producer: Mara Blazic
Reporters/Producers: Ben Cheshire/ Brigid Donovan/ Helen Grasswill/ Rebecca Latham/ John Millard/ Wendy Page/ Maragaret Parker
Supervising Producer: Ben Hawke
Executive Producer: Deborah Flemming
2001
Giving A Child Away
Feb 2001 – 55’
Producer: Caitlin Shea
Researcher: Caitlin Shea
BACKGROUND:
When a Queensland couple - Darren and Joanna Link - discovered they were to have an unplanned fifth child, they came to a momentous decision. Darren had a married sister in America with everything money could buy except the child she'd always wanted. So when Darren and Joanna offered her their own new baby as a gift of love, it was an answer to all her prayers. But neither couple anticipated the repercussions, consequences that would come to a head when they were all reunited.
FILM STARTS AT 3.15
3.49
JOANNA LINK: I'm looking forward to seeing Rick and Tracey. Sydney I'm dying to see because she'd be changed a lot since last time we saw her. But I'm having my regrets too. I'll be thinking of, look what I'm missing out on, having her around me, and seeing them as a happy family.
4.14
TRACEY HAZAN: We're very excited about coming back to Australia on our holiday. I'm very excited about seeing Darren and Jo, of course, and their children. And of course, there is a little bit of apprehension there about how we're all going to come together as a family group.
4.43
DARREN LINK: Tracey and I were never really close when we were kids. We fought a lot. It's only since we've had.....you know, I've shared this with Tracey that Tracey and I have become really close. And it's been something we've missed from our childhood. It really helped us bond, I guess.
5.12
JOANNA: We lead a very different life to Tracey and Rick. They live in Chicago. We live in Gladstone.
5.31
TRACEY: I really love living in America. It's a wonderful country. And it's definitely a land of opportunity.
5.44
RICK HAZAN: About ten, twelve years ago I started my own business. I do group travel around the world for the mature audience. I was escorting a group down to Australia. Tracey was the manager on duty. So she actually checked me in and I, in turn, checked her out. We've been very fortunate. The business has worked out well. I've always felt hard work guarantees nothing but lack of it guarantees failure. Worked hard - Tracey helped a lot - got lucky. I think you always make your own luck. And fortunes rained over, and we're able to enjoy some nice things in life.
6.33
DARREN: We run a small cabinet-making firm here in Gladstone. We have four children It's a working class town. There's not a great deal to do here so you try and make the most of what we've got. When we were having our first child, I couldn't imagine what it was gonna be like to have children of me own. And after having Fletcher...I just couldn't imagine life without the children. I guess that's why we just kept coming back and having another child. They're really good kids.
7.30
TRACEY: I always wanted to be a mum. I remember being a teenager and holding relations' babies and my friends' babies and just...crying just imagining me to be a mum. Of course, my mum never had any problems getting pregnant. Darren, my brother, already had a big family. My sister was talking about having a family. So when I couldn't fall pregnant when we were trying the old-fashioned way, it was just devastating to me. Luckily, a little bit in the back of my mind after having my accident as a child - one of the first questions my mum asked the doctors was whether I would have problems having children. And the doctors said, "We'll never know until she tries, but we don't think so.”
8.29
DARREN: When we were younger, Tracey and I were playing at a friend of mine's place here in Gladstone. We made this bit of a cubby and we had this ladder we put up. This ladder was made of steel and had one end that was really long.
8.54
TRACEY: I was eight years old. I was the first one up on the table so, being a kid, I was jumping up and down, teasing my friends that I was up here first - probably teasing my brother more so because there was a lot of competition with us. And I overbalanced and I fell on it, and it pierced my body.
9.20
DARREN: The longer end of the steel bar went through her backside and came out near her shoulder, which was quite severe. For a while there, it was touch and go. I blacked a lot of that out. I actually saw it happen. And I was only about five years old, six years old.
9.45
DARREN: Thank God, Tracey recovered from that, but that basically was the reason why she has trouble having children.
9.54
TRACEY: There is a lot of internal scarring with my ovaries and my tubes. But we tried everything. They put me on a lot of hormones, they did internal testing - they did everything. One of the things that they discovered was I wasn't producing eggs. So they thought, well, maybe we needed to get an egg donor. And then that's when the first part of my wonderful family stepped in. My sister who, at the time, was 18, came over to America and she was an egg donor for us. I went through some IVF procedures and unfortunately, for whatever reason, I just did not get pregnant. We thought, Okay. We're gonna try this, this and this, and then if this doesn't work, we'll go to adoption. We wanted a family, and we looked at, if we can't have our own children, we would adopt. That was always an option for us. We never thought anything of it because as far as we're concerned, it is a child. It's a child.
11.05
RICK: If you want to have a baby by natural means, you can't always have that. If you want to form your family via adoption, you can always have a family. And our goal was to have a family.
11.17
TRACEY: We contacted an agency that helped us do an adoption plan. And what we did - we actually advertised. And we found a birth mother. We were very involved with her pregnancy. She ended up giving birth to a little boy. Unfortunately, the adoption fell through which was, as you can imagine, absolutely devastating to us after going through, everything that got us to this point. Um, we're talking about four years?
11.52
RICK: Yeah. About a month later, though, your brother called.
11.55
TRACEY: Yes. And, yeah, it was the most incredible thing that had happened to us. Out of the blue, a month after we had this terrible news, my brother called and he said, "We wanna do something, Trace."
12.16
DARREN: Our fifth child was a bit of a surprise. Joanna came in and told me that she was pregnant. I was really happy - I was really happy about it - can't say I wasn't happy, because we just live for our kids. Jo is the most wonderful mother you could ever wish for a child. She just loves kids.
12.43
JOANNE: I was very shocked when I found out I was pregnant for the fifth time. Making it that it would have a lot of strain on Darren and I, because we'd not so long had a baby - Kyle was still a baby - and the strain on Chloe and Fletcher and Dylan, and not being able to pay attention to them as much as I would if I did have another child.
13.13
DARREN: This is what really surprised me - she came to me and said that she wasn't sure about having another child. We felt guilty that here, we could have another child, and... like, we've got four kids already and we could just have another child like that, and here are Rick and Tracey who were having so much trouble to have a child. Just seemed so unfair. I'm not sure who brought up the idea of adopting this baby to Tracey. But it was like a mutual agreement. We thought about it for quite a while before we even approached Tracey with the idea.
14.08
JOANNA: Well, Darren rang her and spoke to her and said that I was pregnant and worried about how I was going to cope with the children and having another baby. Darren said, 'would you be interested in adopting the child and having the child?' And they thought about it and rang us back within, like, half an hour. That was how long it took them.
14.27
TRACEY: This phone call - it was like manna from heaven. I mean, of course, you know, you always want your own child, and I wanted a baby. This, to me, was the next best thing to having my own, natural born child - my niece.
14.51
JOANNA: I thought about it for a couple of days. Darren was thinking about it as well. And then he just left it all up to me to decide what I wanted to do. When I rang Tracey back and told her that I was going to adopt the child to her, she was overwhelmed. She was crying and screaming. She didn't know what to think, whether it was all... she had to pinch herself. She said that she had to pinch herself about five times to see if it's real, you know. And I said, "Yes, it's real."
15.27
DARREN: The reason for doing what we done was to see Rick and Tracey happy and have what we have - which is a wonderful family - and to enjoy a child.
15.48
TRACEY: I was concerned, but more so for their feelings. Here they had their own family, and they were... This decision that they were going to make would affect not only their family unit - our whole extended family - knowing that they were going to have a child that, number one, was going to live in another country that they wouldn't see that often. A whole gauntlet of emotions went through me. But I have to admit the biggest one was just excitement. My dreams were finally, after all this disappointment, coming true.
16.41
JOANNA: And then I convinced myself to...that it was Tracey's baby. Kept in communication with her the whole time. She rang me up every third day, constantly saying, "How's my baby?" I'd say, "Your baby's good," and I just coached myself that I was going to be its auntie. This was at three months pregnant. And the kids knew that we were going to adopt it, so they knew right from the beginning. And we were all happy, but sad at the same time. Well, I was. The kids just thought they were going to America for a holiday.
17.22
DARREN: We still weren't sure if we actually done the right thing. The further we got down the pregnancy, the more doubts I think we had. We never let on this to Tracey and Rick.
17.41
TRACEY: There was never any doubt in my mind that they wouldn't go through with it. And that probably made it so much harder for them, so much harder - more so than I could imagine, than Rick could imagine, anyone could imagine. This is something that you just don't give and take back.
18.10
JOANNA: I always wanted another little girl like Chloe, the one that I've got. But when I found out behind Darren's back that I was having a little girl, it made me have a second decision on what I was gonna do - whether I was gonna adopt the child or not, because finding out it was a little girl was really upsetting. But I had to come to terms with it. I'd promised them the baby no matter what it was. They were gonna have a child. That was the hardest part for me to deal with, knowing that it was a little girl and Tracey was gonna get that little girl that I always wanted.
19.13
RICK: Well, once the decision was made that we were going to form a family with Jo's and Darren's help, we had to figure out how to do this - legally, ethically, any way. And Australian laws are a certain way, American law's a certain way. And the best way was, frankly, having Jo come to America and give birth to Sydney IN America, because if you're born in the US, you are automatically a US citizen.
19.51
JOANNA: When I got over there I had to have counselling straight away just to give me pointers how to deal with adopting a child. It wasn't so hard being in the family, they explained to me, because I'd always see the child.
20.11
Knowing that our child was going to go to somewhere where it was going to not want for anything and be loved is a real special feeling, because you know that your child's gonna be safe the whole time.
20.31
I became very close to Rick and Tracey. Every time the baby would kick Rick would say, "Could I feel it?" And I felt special that I was carrying their child. And they were just so happy the whole time I was over there.
20.56
Just experienced the joy that they had. Every time I'd go for a doctor's visit, Tracey'd come in. And the doctor one day shocked her and said, "We've gotta get Darren over here soon as possible because Joanna's starting to have the baby. "Tracey just stood there and cried. I remember the look on her face. They said to her, "You're gonna have a baby soon," and she just couldn't believe it.
21.19
TRACEY: I was just stunned. I mean, I was finally going to be a mum. And...It was great. It was unbelievable.
21.29
DARREN: To be honest, I don't think.. right to the.. right to the very point of Jo giving birth, I always had a doubt in my mind whether we actually thought this through properly. The most wonderful part of it was at the hospital in Chicago. It was real important for me for Rick to see the birth.
22.03
Why it was important for me for Rick to see the birth was he could appreciate Sydney more, and the miracle of life in a child being born. It makes you realise what your wife goes through to have that child, and how selfish I've been, and the pain.
22.42
JOANNA: When I had Sydney, Tracey was there to hold the baby for the first time so then it would smell her as a mother and Sydney would know who her mother was straightaway.
22.58
TRACEY: I fed her her first bottle. I was looking down at this wonderful little.....my baby, my child, my daughter. It was incredible.
23.19
DARREN: I remember Rick and Tracey just breaking down crying when Sydney was born, and all emotions come flooding in from everywhere. And I just got caught up in the excitement of Sydney being born, and had forgotten all about the adoption. Then I realised that this wasn't our child anymore and just broke down crying with Jo.
24.03
As soon as Jo was well enough to leave the hospital, we stayed in a hotel for three days to give Tracey and Rick a chance alone with the baby. They were probably one of the three most emptiest days of our lives. During the three days we were trying to think, trying to reassure ourselves that we'd done the right thing. Fortunately, we had a counsellor quite often, which Tracey and Rick had organised, and she was wonderful. She helped us through it. And we couldn't have done it without her. But basically, we...we just couldn't wait to get out of there.
24.51
TRACEY: For me, it was the most joyous time of my life. But of course, I always thought about what Darren and Jo were going through too, especially Jo.
25.01
RICK: They were great about it, though. It's hard for them, but they didn't really share too much with us about how hard it was. That was part of their, you know...One of them has carried on, you know. And it was good.
25.23
JOANNA: We knew in our minds that we were going to adopt it but you get three days before you have to sign the adoption papers. The day came. Rick came and picked us up and Tracey watched the children at the motel.
25.40
DARREN: I think in one way we didn't want to sign them and, on the the hand, we wanted to sign them and just have it all done. We just wanted to get out of there. It was...I don't want to sound callous, but we loved Sydney so much. She's a really special child to us. But the more we saw of her, the harder it was.
26.09
JOANNA: The hardest part was signing the adoption papers. But then we realised that the child was gone - Sydney was gone from us. It was Sydney Hazan, not Sydney Link. So...it was all done and over, really. It felt like...that something had gone from me that day, but I gave them something lovely. Seeing Tracey and Rick so happy with her - she was a Hazan and they were one family, one whole family, that they couldn't even buy. We gave her to them as a gift.
27.09
DARREN: We got back and it was difficult, because Jo would quite often break down and cry. And I'm not the strongest person as it is, and I had to sort of be strong for Jo, and the kids - I had to be strong for the kids, because they didn't understand exactly what was going on. Fletcher just played up the whole time, and he's always a really good kid. And he just played up the whole time. I think that was his sort of way of releasing.
27.52
FLETCHER LINK: I felt really sad. I was just gonna say there, "Can we keep her?" and stuff. But I knew I couldn't see her because they don't have a baby.
28.04
CHLOE LINK: When Mum gave the baby to Auntie Tracey I was sad, and I wanted it to be my sister.
28.25
JOANNA: There is lots of good times and there's lots of bad times. Sometimes, when we receive photos in the mail, they're happy times but they're sad times as well, because I was thinking what it'd be like if we had her now.
28.43
DARREN: We really enjoy hearing from Tracey. Tracey rings quite often, letting us know what Sydney's doing, what she's looking like, how she's changed in her looks. And even though we love to hear about Sydney all the time, it makes it even harder. On the same token, we don't wanna hear from Tracey. We don't wanna hear how well she's going.
29.12
We realise that with every word Tracey speaks of how wonderful she is, it makes us feel more and more guilty about what we've done. And what we've lost.
29.32
JOANNA: There's not a day that goes past that I don't think about her. Not a day at all.
29.52
RICK: She's 18 months old now, and every day is an adventure. It makes you, when you go to work, wanna run home. It's a wonderful feeling. The first time she says 'Dad', she holds her arms out to you and grabs you. All those are really special things.
30.23
TRACEY: I never take her for granted for one second. Even when she's at her naughtiest which, at 18 months, she's just starting to push her buttons, I mean, I still look at her and think what an incredible gift I have in my life.
30.45
RICK: They did it for Tracey. I mean, Darren did it for his sister. Jo probably did it because of her love for her husband, and I was the beneficiary for loving my wife. So I get...The best end of everything is that I get the joy of Tracey and Darren's love. That's what it was. I mean, they know the joy of parenting, and they wanted us to experience it too. And we now have.
31.13
TRACEY: It's hard to put into words how grateful...no, grateful's not a word. What they did for us...You know, there's no words that I can verbalise to explain how I feel. Um, I will, you know, this is a bad word but I can't think of a better word, I will never be able to repay them.
31.46
This is a gift of love and it goes beyond the boundaries of love. It's just an incredible, amazing thing that they did, and something that will...that's bound us so much closer. The most wonderful thing about this is that in her beautiful little face.....I see my family, so I don't feel like I'm so far away. I mean, I look in her face and I see my brother, I see my sister, I see my mum and dad. And it's like having them there in America with me.
33.01
DARREN: We enjoy the simpler things in life. So, Sydney's going to sort of have the best...better than any of my child. Like, the best...best schools, the best medical service, the best...best of everything, which I could never, ever have given her. So, I look at that as being pretty fortunate.
33.51
JO: There was lots of rumours getting around Gladstone that we had sold our child for $50,000, which is very untrue. I don't think people realise how much it hurts your family that when they do say rumours like that. Money is not an issue in our lives at all. It's for love, not money.
34.15
DARREN: You can't put a dollar value on a child's life. I hate to disappoint some of the people in Gladstone, but there's no truth to that whatsoever. And people who really know Jo and I should know there's no way that could ever happen.
34.40
A year passed and they came to visit us in Gladstone, which was part of the healing process. We were both very anxious and Rick and Tracey, I can imagine, were very hesitant too.
34.53
JO: Darren and I were thinking positively, "We're seeing our niece." We think on the lines that she is our niece. But when she got off the plane with Rick and Tracey, she had the biggest smile on her face, and that made us feel satisfied that she was happy. And she went to us straight away, she gave us all a big cuddle, and wanted us all straight away, so it was all lovely. The kids just loved her.
35.18
DARREN: It just healed. It did so much for Jo and I, I think, to see that she was happy. To see how happy Rick and Tracey were as well, at ease they were. Then I felt like we'd definitely made the right decision.
35.39
JO: Very, very sad to see her go, because I knew I wouldn't see her for a long time, but we made a promise to each other that we'd see each other once a year, that was the promise that we made to each other, so I know there won't be a year that goes by that we don't see her. But this year, we might be able to see her twice, which will be great, so hopefully in November, we'll all meet up and see each other, it'll be great fun.
36.18
TRACEY: This time, she's 18 months old, and she's her own little person now, and she's going through a very clingy stage right now, so I'm a little bit worried about how Darren and Jo will feel when Sydney won't run up to them with open arms. And, I think this is going to hit home to them that, you know, yes, this is Rick and Tracey's child.
38.39
JO: Oh, Darren, can't you see that? There is a photo of me at that age, Darren, and she's the splitting image of me, hey?
38.45
DARREN: She is like a little doll, isn't she?
38.48
JO: Oh, Darren... Sydney...? Come here, come here, baby. No, you don't want to. She's so tired, honey, she is. Sydney? Hello! Hello. Oh, she's so cute...
39.20
DARREN: She looks different to the other kids, though, doesn't she?
39.27
JO: That was great.
39.28
DARREN: It was really different, though, like, it was sort of hard, wasn't it? Like, that she didn't come straight to us, sort of thing. That made it quite difficult.
39.38
JO: She will.
39.38
DARREN: Yeah, give her time to settle down.
40.16
JO: It's hard for me, because I still feel like a mother, and, no matter what, she still feels like mine. But I just find it hard when they say, "Oh, go to Daddy", or "Go to Mummy".
40.30
DARREN: Yeah, you're just about to put your arms out.
40.32
JO: And I go...I go to put my arms out, and I think, "No, it's not my child."
40.42
DARREN: Whenever I see the kids long for Sydney it makes me feel pretty regretful.
40.59
JO: Just seeing the children want Sydney and cuddle Sydney and know her as her sister and her cousin, that's the hardest part. They want her to be her sister, and seeing Fletcher want to be with her all the time, and Chloe...
41.15
DARREN: Actually, I think it was Chloe, Tracey said Chloe come up to her the other day, oh, just yesterday, and asked if Sydney was her sister or her cousin. Did Tracey tell you that?
41.28
JO: No. What did...?
41.31
DARREN: And Tracey nervously said to me, "Oh, what should I have said?" And I said, "Oh, you could tell her she's both, you know. "Yeah. Tracey, "Oh, yeah, I did." I said, "Oh, yeah, that's fine then."
41.40
JO: That's what we still reassure them, that she is her sister...their sister and her cousin. Both, 'cause she's a part of us, as well.
42.13
DARREN: Yeah, it must be hard for them to grasp. They must get a bit confused about exactly what role she plays in their lives, you know? But, um, they're the sort of things that you don't think of.. When you plan to do this. After Sydney was born and the adoption all went through, we thought, "Well, that's it", but it just never really stops, does it?
42.41
JO: It doesn't. It goes on and on and on. It'll probably go on until she's 18, 19, or for the rest of her life.
42.49
DARREN: Just little things...
42.50
JO: We'll always be there, and she will.
43.05
RICK: Darren and Jo should be the aunt and uncle, but a very special aunt and uncle, and Sydney will know at some point, when Sydney's ready to know, that these were her birth parents, and she has biological siblings. Um, we're not embarrassed, quite the opposite, we're proud of it. Openness is great, and there's a lot of good things about that, so they'll be very special uncles and aunts. And they seem to be very good with that, by the way too, they seem very happy with that.
43.58
DARREN: I consider Sydney my daughter. I'll never, ever, no matter what anyone says... She could never not be my daughter. I could never cut the cords clean like that. She'll always...she'll always be my daughter. She'll always be...It's sort of difficult to hear Tracey and Rick say, "Uncle Darren". That's really hard for someone, getting used to, or "Aunty Jo".
44.08
JO: I know she's loved, but it's just, there's nothing like a mother's bond. That's what I keep telling myself - I've got something special with her, that no-one else has got.
45.07
TRACEY: When Sydney's ready to hear about how she came to be in our lives, definitely, she will know. And she will know the great love and sacrifice that Darren and Jo made for...for Rick and I, for us.
45.33
DARREN: Even to this day, we still have doubts whether we've done the right thing, or not. Um, I really worry about Sydney one day asking the question, 'Why?' Her brothers and sisters are here in Australia... why she was given away. And hopefully, she'll never have to feel to ask that question, as long as we keep it open and loving. So she feels like we're just one big, extended family. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do if she ever asks me. First of all, I'd convince her that we really loved her, and that was one of the hardest decisions we ever made in our lives, but we felt she was going to a good home, and she was still in the family. She was still part of us.
47.09
JO: In a way, I'm glad we're going. Only seeing her a couple of days, because you do grow closer and closer. I did make a terrible mistake for myself, because of the grieving I've gone through, but I made a good...a good choice for Tracey and Rick. But, I would never do it again, never. Seeing Sydney again has just brought all those memories back up again. I do miss her very much. She'll always be a part of me and I'll always love her like she's mine. No matter what, she'll always be mine. And, I'm crying, I just miss her dreadfully.
48.38
TRACEY: One thing that I never thought about in this whole process was the guilt that I would feel. I thought that I would be so joyous, of course, which I am, but I feel guilty, too. I feel guilty about the pain that's driven a wedge between us, which I think it has. I feel guilty about being happy with Sydney sometimes, because I know how much it's hurting them, seeing us, and I could see Jo, especially, when Sydney came to me and called me 'mummy', I mean, that must have killed her. They must have really, really hurt her, because it just emphasised everything she lost. And that hurts me to know that she's hurting like that, because I feel guilty about my joy, because...my joy, it came at such a price for them.
Ultrasound Examination
50.11
Doctor: Your baby's looking out, he's got a little nose, little lips. Little hand coming out, toes. The little leg going up to the knee.
50.24
DARREN: Yeah, we decided to have another child, to end it all, I think, take our minds of Sydney. I know that sounds heartless, but we just feel there's an open wound that this, I think, would heal it, especially for Jo's sake, as well.
50.41
JO: I so desperately want this child that I'm having now to be a little girl, for Chloe's sake and my own sake, so we can have the joy of a little girl that one.....one like the one that we lost.
51.00
FLETCHER: I'm really excited 'cause Mum and Dad is having a baby, and I hope it's a girl, not a boy, because we've got too much...too many boys in our family.
51.10
TRACEY: When I first heard that Darren and Joanna were expecting again, my first reaction was shock, I have to be honest. I was very surprised, um, but I think it's a wonderful thing. I think that this will really help the healing process with them. And I'm excited I'm going to be an aunty again.
51.31
DARREN: No baby could ever replace Sydney, we're well aware of that, all the kids are. By the same token, we feel that we really need to have another child, but Sydney is always in our hearts.
51.52
TRACEY: We're on our way to working on getting Sydney a new brother or sister.
52.10
TRACEY: So right now, I've got some little eggs sitting in the freezer, that's, um, Larissa, my sister, is the biological mother, and Rick is the biological father. So, right now, we're looking for a surrogate, we've just contacted an agency that are going to help us, and we figure they're pretty much close to matching us up to someone, so hopefully, in a year, we'll have a sibling for Sydney, which is very exciting.
52.38
DARREN: About a month ago, we closed the business and moved out to a larger house on a couple of acres. Um, just for more room for the extra baby and the kids to run around.
52.57
JO: I can't express how happy I am to have another child. I'm due February 20th, and we're all just longing for that day to happen.
53.15
TRACEY: I think as Sydney gets older, it'll get a lot easier. I think once Darren and Jo have the next child, that will really help their healing process, I think, and even though nothing will ever, ever replace Sydney in their minds, it will help ease the pain, and for that fact alone, it's going to be a very, very special child.
53.46
DARREN: I think it's created a bit of anxiety between Tracey's family and my family. I think we both didn't realise the way we're really feeling. It's, sort of, when things are so emotional, I don't know how other people feel, but I sort...I clam up a bit and keep to myself, you know, and unfortunately, on this occasion, I probably should've talked a bit more to Tracey, so that she knew exactly how I was feeling, but in one way, it's good, this has sort of put everything out in the open, and we all realise now exactly how it's affected both sides.
54.29
TRACEY: There's a lot of consequences that, um, none of us ever thought of. Like, hindsight is worth 20/20, and it's been an interesting procession of all these different emotions and thoughts, and things that have happened between all four of us, I'm sure, but the overwhelming thing is Sydney, and how wonderful she is and what a special little girl she is, and what special people Darren and Jo are.
ENDS
CREDITS:
Producer: Caitlin Shea
Camera: Anthony Sines
Sound: Marc Smith
Editor: Roger Carter
Specialist contributor: Caroline Jones
Theme: Charlie Chan
Camera: Quentin Davies
Sound: Scott Taylor
Editing: Kent Gordon/ Ian Harley
Compile Editor: Brad McCrystal
Post Production Audio: Tim Pearce
Film Research: Robert Hodgson/ Lyndal Osbourne/ Helen Scales
Production Assistant: Tom Brogden
Producer’s Assistant: Fiona Dempster
Production Manager: Anita Atkins
Associate Producer: Mara Blazic
Reporters/Producers: Ben Cheshire/ Brigid Donovan/ Helen Grasswill/ Rebecca Latham/ John Millard/ Wendy Page/ Maragaret Parker
Supervising Producer: Ben Hawke
Executive Producer: Deborah Flemming
2001