My Mother's Children: An Irish family secret and the scars it left behind.

shape. I had about a five to seven per-cent chance of getting pregnant with IVF treatment. What we weren’t expecting were Joe’s results. His sperm showed up abnormalities. This, combined with my age, meant our chances of conceiving with IVF were even lower. When we told the consultant about our earlier pregnancy he shrugged and said it was probably a fluke, the way things were looking now it was going to be extremely difficult. When we left the clinic, Joe cried like he had all those years ago outside that other clinic when the scan showed we had lost our baby. But this time I cried too. I’d left it too late. Fear and indecision had kept me lingering too long.

I turned to Tim. “I don’t know if I told you but Joe and I have decided to adopt.”

“You have?” He gave me a tentative smile.

“We’re not broadcasting it or anything yet but we’ve found an agency we like and we’re going through the initial checks and vetting at the moment.”

“Excellent news. I’m delighted for you both.”

“We don’t want to get our hopes up too much. We might not even be approved.”

“Why wouldn’t you? You’ll make wonderful parents.”

“It’ll be a long haul, at least eighteen months before we even get a match and the chances of getting a baby are small. But I have to admit, I’m starting to get excited now.”

Truth was, Joe and I been completely taken aback at the amount of hurdles and training and checks we had to go through going though: medical records, personal references, extensive criminal-record searches. They’d even brought up a police caution for shoplifting when I was fourteen.

Tim said, looking over at Dan who was holding my niece on his hip. “None of it will be easy but it’ll be worth it in the end.”

The unforgiving voice in my head, the one that was fading with time, wanted to remind Tim how he had become a father. It wasn’t just that he and James had bought Dan, that they had simply walked into the Mother and Baby home in Tuam, handed a large sum of money over to the nuns and taken my brother home. It was that in the years that followed Timothy had never searched out Tess to tell her. Part of me was still angry about it but I would never say it to Tim. I had grown to love him too much.

Thankfully, the world was a different place now. No adopted child of mine would be sold to me for profit or denied access to their documents and medical records. My child’s birth certificate would not be falsified so he or she could never trace their birth mother. She would not be locked in an institution, made to work as a slave for her keep and have her new-born ripped from her breast simply because she wasn’t married. The child I adopted would have the right to have contact with his or her birth mother. Neither of them would live a lifetime of longing, thinking of each other every day and going stone mad with the pain of not knowing.

The clink of metal against glass. Ellie asked everyone to move into the garden then we shuffled into a semi-circle around Janet, the humanist celebrant. Janet was Scottish and over six foot. The trousers of her lilac linen suit were too short and she laughed a lot. A few children escaped their parents’ clutches and headed for the bouncy castle but no-one seemed to mind. After the family introductions, Janet gave a humorous talk about the importance of parenting, Archie read a piece about how he was going to be a splendid brother to his baby sister and Ellie read a Margaret Atwood poem called “You Begin”.

Then it was my turn. Dan gave that look he had sometimes, like he was searching my face for something he’d lost. Then he handed me my beautiful flaxen-haired niece. She had fallen asleep on his chest and continued to sleep on mine. I inhaled her newness, the lemony smell of her curls, and the soft tulle of her dress. It felt both painful and joyful at the same time.

Then for a moment I lost track of what Janet was saying as I caught sight of them by the fence, hidden in the sun’s shadow. Tess was wearing her pink suit, Dad had his hand on her shoulder and Mikey was saying something that made them all laugh.

Ellie nudged me back to the present. Janet was asking me what name had been chosen for my niece. I looked at Dan and smiled.

“Tess,” I said, kissing the top of her head.

Then I glanced in the direction of the fence again. But they’d all gone.

The End