Free Banished Babies: The Secret History of Ireland's Baby Export Business by Mike Milotte

this: ‘She rang. I picked up the phone and she introduced herself. “Hello this is Mary, this is your mom, how have you been?” Although I’d already shed so many tears earlier that morning after talking to Enda, I was choking up inside. What do you say to your mother after 33 years? I never really imagined that I would ever find her. And on top of that to find I had a father and a family as well. It was all too incredible.’
    Mary believes her positive experience in reuniting with Kevin holds out hope to other mothers who gave a child up for adoption and who are now worried about the prospect of confronting that child as an adult. ‘I’m sure all mothers who gave a child up for adoption are aching – part of their heart is gone like mine was. And 3,000 miles of ocean between mothers and children who were sent to America is an added complication. But don’t give up. I faced up to Kevin expecting to be rejected, expecting to be given out to, expecting him to say “you dumped me”. And I was prepared for him to say “now I’ve found you, you can go to hell”. But he didn’t. He was thrilled. And all those children need that, and the mothers will find relief too. For each one just knowing the other is alive, hopefully well, and not bearing grudges, that’s a great relief.’ And now, fifteen years after their reunion, Mary says it has all gone ‘swimmingly’: they talk regularly by phone and she and Michael have been to visit Kevin in Virginia and he, too, comes to Ireland to see them.
    When Kevin thinks back to the circumstances in which he was placed for adoption, any grudges he harbours are most certainly not against Mary. ‘Thirty years ago it was a different world. I don’t think Mary had any choice. I don’t think Mary felt she had the power to keep me, she felt forced to give me up. It was a control thing and I don’t think that was fair. I know it has been a very painful experience for Mary not to have seen me grow up and to have lived with the guilt of giving me up and being powerless to do anything about it. That, I think, is the worst part of it, and we can’t go back and change that. For me, there was a spot in my heart that was empty for years. You’ve lost your roots, you’ve lost your heritage, all the possibilities of another life that has been denied. You lose your identity, the foundation of who you are, the person you are supposed to be.’
    These feelings, Kevin made clear, did not arise because of any unhappy experiences in his adoptive family. ‘I’ve had a great life in America, my parents loved me dearly, but there is a deep sense of loss, very deep inside me. As much as my life has been happy and wonderful, there’s a sorrow at not knowing where you came from. And then there’s the pain in trying to reconcile these two aspects of your life. It can exhaust you sometimes. I think that like many other adopted people I’ve been on a journey. We all have different roads. My journey was to find my natural parents, and my goal was to fill the void inside my heart. I know I’m one of the lucky ones.’ Mary agrees: ‘We are the lucky ones. How many mothers are out there wondering where their child is?’
    And it was no thanks to St Patrick’s Guild that Mary, Michael and Kevin turned out to be among ‘the lucky ones’. Yet in a statement issued in response to questions, Sister Gabriel pointed out that St Patrick’s operates a professional tracing service which aims to help reunite adopted children with their natural mothers. She quoted figures. St Patrick’s Guild had placed over 4,000 children with adoptive parents, 572 of them children who were sent to America between 1947 and 1967. Since it began offering a tracing service in 1981, Sister Gabriel said 1,513 of the adoption files had been opened, 113 of them relating to American adoptions. But just 12 of these had resulted in reunions – half the rate of domestic reunions. 8
    ‘It is the policy of St Patrick’s Guild to