For decades I watched my mother mourn her baby who died at birth. When I learned what really happened to my sister, my sadness turned to anger

Forty-five years may have passed, but Chrisanthi Hronis can still feel the nurse’s vice grip on her arms, and then the prick of the needle.

She had just given birth – to a girl, she was told – but had never held the child in her arms. The last thing she remembers before everything went dark was watching the baby being taken away by the midwife.

She was too weak to scream, even though every part of her body was screaming inside.

Hours later, Chrisanthi woke up in the same hospital bed in Athens. A doctor came and told her that the baby had died at birth. She wasn’t allowed to see her.

No, that wasn’t right: she had heard her baby crying and watched her being taken away. In the frantic moments that followed, Chrisanthi, still too numb to move, began to consider what could have happened.

She had arrived at the hospital 24 hours earlier and the staff immediately asked her if she would consider putting her child up for adoption.

“There is an American couple outside in the hallway who would give the baby a happy home in the United States,” they said.

Chrisanthi, an unwed mother from a religious family, balked at the idea. Her pregnancy in 1979 may have been a scandal on the small Greek island she called homebut she was nevertheless determined to raise the child.

Forty-five years ago, Chrisanthi Hronis (right) gave birth to a child in a hospital in Athens, Greece. She was sedated and told that the child had died, but later learned that the baby had been adopted by an American couple without her consent. Chrisanthi later emigrated to Australia, where she had two more children, including daughter Costadina Abboud (left)

And the baby’s father, Gregorios, even though he was no longer her boyfriend, had said he would do the right thing and support them.

But her protests fell on deaf ears. She didn’t know it at the time, but the deal was already done. She never went home with her baby.

Although she cannot be sure, Chrisanthi, who was 29 at the time, suspects that the American couple boarded a flight with her baby around the time she woke up in the hospital.

It is possible that even to this day the child has no idea that she was adopted.

Speaking to FEMAIL with the help of her second-born daughter Costadina, translating every painful word, Chrisanthi reveals: ‘It has been the heartache of my life.’

Chrisanthi’s baby, who would now be 45, is one of the ‘lost children of Greece’ – the term used for Greek children who were stolen from their mothers and adopted to other countries starting in the late 1940s.

Costadina Abboud claims her mother was drugged and her baby stolen from an Athens hospital in 1979

Weeks after her child was stolen from her, Chrisanthi found herself on an immigrant ship bound for Australia. Still raw from her trauma and with a new decade ahead, she wanted a fresh start and her father, disgusted that she had become pregnant, was happy to see her way.

Fresh off the boat, she soon met the man who would become her husband at Parramatta’s Greek Orthodox Church. She told him she had lost a baby weeks before leaving for Australia, but he agreed to marry her anyway.

The couple had two children together: daughter Costadina, who was born two years after her older sister’s kidnapping, followed by a son.

Although Chrisanthi had her fears from the day it happened, it would be years before she finally learned what happened to her first child.

Her daughter did not die at birth. Instead, Chrisanthi’s father, who “didn’t want anything to do with the child,” organized a forced adoption.

Chrisanthi learned this shocking truth because her older sister, who had always been her father’s favorite, confessed that she had helped carry out the deed.

The family had bribed hospital staff to tell Chrisanthi that her baby had died. Then the child had been given to the American couple waiting in the hallway and fled the United States to start a new life.

The baby’s father, Gregorios, was devastated when he learned that the child had been stolen at birth

The truth broke Chrisanthi’s heart. Now 79, she wants closure, and so does her daughter.

‘Mom was the best mother. We just want to know if my sister had a good life and want her to know that mum didn’t want her to be adopted,” her daughter Costadina told FEMAIL from her home in western Sydney where she works as a baker.

Gregorios, the girl’s father, also married and had three children, who also want to meet their long-lost sibling.

As an adult, when she learned what happened to her mother’s first child, Costadina made it her mission to find out the truth.

She started by tracking down the hospital staff. Most had died or were unreachable, but after joining forces with Gregorios, they tracked down a nurse who had worked in the ward that night.

They found her home address, but it was a dead end.

“He knocked on the door and asked her questions, but she just stood there and didn’t say anything,” she said.

“My mother wants to get to know her daughter and wants her to know that she didn’t want to adopt her,” Costadina said. (Photo: middle-aged Chrisanthi)

Every lead since then has been fruitless.

Even genealogy websites, where users submit DNA to discover relatives around the world, have failed to link Costadina to her lost sister.

Now that she’s seemingly exhausted every avenue, she hopes someone will recognize themselves in her own childhood photos, or something someone looking for answers about their adoption 45 years ago will read her story.

“She was born on August 20, 1979,” she said.

All the family has to say is that the baby was a girl, but Costadina reluctantly admits they can’t even be 100 percent sure..

‘There were so many lies, they could have lied about that too. And everyone involved is now deceased, so we will never get those answers.’

The practice of forced adoption was so common in Greece in the twentieth century that there have been several TV programs about reuniting lost relatives.

Dozens of Facebook groups exist that reconnect parents and siblings. So far, Costadina has not found any clues on social media.

Georgios and Chrisanthi were not together when the baby was born and both married other people

Costadina announced her search for her brother or sister a few months ago.

She was flooded with people sharing similar stories of forced adoption, not just in Greece, but across Europe.

A woman whose mother was taken from Macedonia at birth in 1976 commented, “I’ve thought about it so many times and wanted to start a similar search.

“It’s unbelievable that this has happened and there’s definitely something happening in that region around this time.”

Another added: “My great uncle and his wife went through the exact same story. In Greece this was about 65 years ago.

“This story and the one you shared are heartbreaking. I can’t believe this was even possible.’