A former colleague of mine at CBS, Maureen Maher, shares some of her backstory and how her life was transformed by Catholic Charities:

CBS News’ Maureen Maher says it was impossible not to get wrapped up in the subject matter of her “48 Hours” special, airing tonight at 10, because the topic, adoption, is so close to her heart.

Two years in the making, the hour called “The Lost Children” looks at a case of children taken from struggling Samoan parents and given to American families as part of a massive adoption scam.

The Samoan parents were told the kids were going to foster homes and they’d be back once the families were in a better position. The American parents thought they were legally adopting the children.

“You can’t not get personally involved,” says Maher, who was adopted at birth. “When you’re pursuing the actual factual part of the case, you have to step back and be objective.”

But, Maher says, when dealing with the adoptive parents involved, she was able to talk to them personally about her life as an adopted child, and what they may face down the road.

“If I have my own experience with something,” she says, “I have no problem sharing that with the people in our stories. If I’m giving them a little piece of my story that helps them, I have no problem with that.”

Maher’s birth parents were high school seniors when her mother got pregnant. Her mother gave her up for adoption at birth, confident that Catholic Charities would find a home for the baby.

“It was a stigma then,” Maher says. “It would have been really hard for her to keep me. She loved me enough to give me up.”

There’s more at the link.