Here's what I can tell you...

Not everything is as it seems.

Photo by Kate Macate on Unsplash

* — names changed

When the Birth Information and Tracing Act was introduced in June 2022 - it was described as a groundbreaking piece of legislation — something like this had never been seen before. This Act aimed to introduce further ways for an adopted person, someone who was boarded out, or those who were the subject of an illegal birth registration to receive more information about themselves. One of the primary things the Act would provide was a means for people like my Mum to receive ‘early life information’ — meaning that my Mum would be allowed to gain access to information about a period of her life previously shrouded in mystery: when she was born.

But before this, trying to obtain any information would have been almost impossible - if you did get anything, it was a meaningless sliver.

Rolling back the clock to the late 1990s, my parents get married in a church in England. Mum had wanted to know if there was anything hereditary-wise she needed to know about before she had kids. She got a very short response back saying that there was nothing that she needed to worry about. At the turn of the millennium, she had written to the [St. John’s] adoption society where her adoption was facilitated, but she was rerouted to the Sacred Hearts Adoption Society. She had received a letter in August 2000, from a Sr. Sarto. It essentially went to the tune of:

Dear Mrs Loftus,

Thank you for your letter. We checked our records and can give you the following details.

You were born on [birth date] at [birth time], were a normal delivery, were full term and weighed [birth weight].

We do not have your adoption file here, please write to [person & address] for assistance.

— Sr. Sarto

Mum didn’t need to write to this other person as Mum inherited the files that her adopted mum, Kathleen had when she had died almost 6 years prior. So, for another 17 years — that is all that she had and would know about her origins. Until, a couple of days after my Mum’s birthday in November 2017 — she was contacted by Tusla to hear that she had a half-sister Rochelle*, looking for her.

That December, a social worker, who we will call AA had been assigned to my Mum & had sent my mum a one-page letter and gave my Mum a paraphrased summary of her files. Files about her birth, and time in Bessborough - got a bit more: when she was born, it was the first time the name ‘Bessborough’ had been mentioned and a very brief description of what Bessborough was. It got part of Mum’s birth name wrong which she would discover a year later when she received her original birth certificate, [which had to be released by a consent form signed by Ana* — who had no problem doing so neither Mum nor Ana* didn’t quite understand the need for it.] and talked about brief information about Ana’s* background. Additionally, it paraphrases a lot of correspondence between religious orders and Ana*, part of which was to ensure that Ana* was on top of her payments for Mum’s upkeep.

However, the one thing Mum would not have been able to see is the actual files AA had been examining and paraphrasing in that letter. No adoptee would ever be privileged to look at such documents.

October 3rd, 2022 — the date when BirthInfo.ie: the online portal for applying to get a copy of files about your early life information was launched. This had a massive backlog (and still does, from what I have seen as of late) when it was launched and as such, Mum hadn’t immediately applied.

January 11th, 2023 — Mum applied through BirthInfo.ie for her records.

April 23rd, 2023 — The point when we know Mum’s case was finally with a case worker.

September 11th, 2023 — Mum finally got her files back, exactly 8 months to the day.

Image 1: The cover of the Stamullen [St Joseph's] Adoption Home register. Image 2: The page with Mum's entry [which I've blanked out] -- what you see is what we got back.

(And we’re still trying to get the entire full unredacted correspondence in particular - and a better scan of a page [which you see above] that didn’t look as if the book was chucked against a skirting board and a photo taken with a poor-quality camera)

Immediately, what hit me was just how much Sr. Sarto and the Sacred Hearts Adoption Society had on my mother and knowing they would never part with that to help my mother probably hurt more than anything. They had so much information they could’ve given to her and my mother wouldn’t get it from them. (And yet, they still apparently do not know where the 859 missing children of Bessborough are buried?)

Who knows? Maybe things could’ve been different. Mum might have got to meet her Mum for the first time in the early 2000s, rather than 2020. Ana* might have gotten to see me and my sister grow up, or we might have gotten to be a part of our cousin Victor’s* life.

It’s something as vital as that could be the difference between an adoptee getting to meet or not meeting their birth family. I have seen way too many stories from adoptees who wanted to meet their birth family but couldn’t because they were either lied to or could not get information about them to trace them. Luckily, my Mum was fortunate enough to meet her mother and is still in frequent contact with her. So while I am very glad my mum gets to build that bond with her birth family years later, the infantilisation and constant secrecy prohibited way too many prompter reunifications and tracing.

It’s perhaps the main reason I think some people are still in denial or constantly deflect whenever the topic of mother and baby homes and how devastating their impact was is brought up.

So, in actuality, before 2022, it was never “Here’s what I can tell you” — it was always (which I say with absolute conviction) “Here’s what I want to tell you”.