A woman who was given up for adoption as a baby has appeared on television to trace her Irish mother and was stunned to discover that she is still alive.
Margaret was adopted in Liverpool as a six-month old baby. She has lived a happy life in England but always knew that she had been adopted, after her Irish mother travelled to England to give her up.
She was invited to appear on the BBC show DNA Family Secrets to try and find out what had happened to her birth mother.
The 67-year-old was joined by show host Stacey Dooley and explained her story with as much details as she knew.
Margaret said that she knew her mother had become pregnant when unmarried in Ireland, and so had travelled to England to give her baby up for adoption in 1953, but never knew what had happened after that.
She said she had lived a happy life with her adoptive parents and had never wanted to search for her birth mother before as she felt it would have upset her adoptive mother.
Margaret told Stacey: “Having worked all my life and retired I just feel it’s right now. My mum never gave me permission, she never said: ‘If you want to go and find your birth mum’. So I didn’t.”
However, now her adoptive mother has passed, Margaret felt the time is right to try and learn more about her birth mother.
She admitted that she may have waited too long, telling her own daughter that: “I think I’ve left it too late to find my birth mum. I don’t think she would be alive. The other thing is to find out if she went back to Ireland and went back happily, that she was ok.”
The details of Margaret’s story were passed on to the team of researchers at BBC’s Family Secrets DNA, and they made a remarkable discovery.
Margaret was told that her birth mother Bridget was still alive and living in an Irish care home.
She was overcome by the news and said: “It’s just beyond words, my birth mum is still alive, how amazing is that I wanted to know if she had a good life and I know she has and that’s great, that’s really good.”
Unfortunately, a re-union is unlikely as Bridget was diagnosed with dementia in 2015 and now requires full-time care.
However, the research team also found that Margaret has two biological sisters. They chose not to appear on the show but did write a letter to Margaret that was read aloud by host Dooley.
She read: “We are glad to hear you had a happy childhood and made a happy life for yourself. We are all looking forward to meeting you and welcoming you into our family.”
Here is the YouTube trailer for the Family Secrets DNA. You can view the episode in full by visiting BBC iPlayer.
