Name: rasa
I have been thinking a lot about adoption lately. Kind of secretly, my DH is NOT on board with this and has not really been willing to discuss much about it yet. So I need to keep this mail confidential for now. But I am still kind of doing a little research just to see what it may be all about
My husband and I have been trying to conceive our 1st child for about one year now. So far we have not been able to conceive. We are both 31 years old. Regardless, of the fact of whether or not we are able to have a biological child I have always been interested in adoption. My sister is adopted. And my mother used to foster children, so our household was always filled with infants and children from many different races and backgrounds it was a wonderful experience. I love children and work as a doula (labor support person) and I am a student midwife. I am always around pregnant women and infants. I desperately want a child to call my own and to be a mother. My husband also desperately wants a child but honestly he is a little hesitant about adoption.
Six years ago (fall of 1999) (before I was married) I traveled to India with some friends. We traveled to some remote villages and temples around Deli and West Bengal. One day while traveling to a fairly remote temple off the banks of the sacred Ganges River in West Bengal, we encountered a village. Since we were a group of westerners (all fair skinned) with one Indian man who was native speaking as our guide, we attracted a lot of attention from the local villages some who had never seen westerners before. While passing through one village I saw women weaving a sari (traditional Indian dress) on a loom I was curious and wanted to see how it was made so we stopped in this village to have a look. This of course caused a lot of excitement with the village. I offered to buy a sari from the villagers, and took some pictures, suddenly there was much excitement among the women in the village, they began pointing to children of all different ages mostly young girls and speaking to me in very excited tones, I could not understand their language and since they were all smiling I thought that they wanted me to take their pictures which I did. Then one women went into a small hut and came out with a very young infant girl (I would guess the baby was about 4 or 5 months old if that) this woman was shouting at me in a very excited tone and she began dressing the baby with clothes. I began to get a bit nervous because all the women were shouting at me and pulling on my clothes and showing me these children and I did not understand what they were saying so I asked our guide to come over and translate. He told me that the women thought that since I was from the west, I was young, had a camera, and had purchased a sari that I was wealthy and they wanted to give me any girl child that I wanted to take home and care for since their village was “over burdened” with girl children. When it seemed that I was refusing the older girls that they were ‘offering’ they went into the hut to find the youngest child in case I wanted an infant. They were not asking money for the child, they just wanted me to take one (or probably more). I of course refused and I left that village and never returned. I do have a group photo of some of the villagers and of the infant child and younger beautiful children they tried to give me.
You can believe that I was completely shocked and confused that a mother could give away her own child at all and to a complete stranger at that. This experience has stayed with me throughout the years but I think that I decided then to adopt a girl child from India, although I was not married and had yet to even meet my husband.
A year later I met my husband to be at a friend’s house, he was from India and was working here in the states in the IT department. We became good friends and in 2002 we were married. We are now both happily married and about to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary. Since our marriage, I have traveled to India 3 more times. To do some traveling and visit my wonderful in-laws who still live in Mumbai where my husband was born and grew up. I have come to learn (and respect) a great deal about the Indian culture. I think that adopting a child from India would be a wonderful fit to our family. If we do decide that adoption is an option for our family, I would want to adopt a female child from India. I have come to understand that female children are more in need for families since the culture is more emphasized on having ‘sons’ and how the girl children are sometimes looked upon as a burden in certain situations because of possible traditional social pressures regarding marriage(dowry) etc.
My question is what are the chances that we could actually adopt an infant? I am sure people request this a lot, but since as of now I am childless, I really would like to adopt an infant. Or if I am able to have a bio child before I adopt, I would love to have an infant because I would love to try and breastfeed the adopted child. I feel that breastfeeding can be very important in the bonding process. Is the fact that my husband was born and lived in India until he was 27(he is a NRI) make us more eligible for adoption of an infant? Or does it aid the adoption process? I am not indian I am American and caucasian. What would it be like if we decided to wait until we already had a child of our own (if it is at all possible) or we become pregnant during the adoption process, does that change our eligibility? How long does the process usually take? How much is the average estimated cost?
Thank you for your time.
Rasa
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