A family for Aasha

My sister-in-law’s tearful voice over the long-distance call from Sri Lanka shattered our hopes of adopting a child.

“This is the worst news I have had to share,” she said.

“The baby boy is gone.”

I leaned against the bed as my husband Ruvi reached for my hand. The baby boy who was to be allocated for our adoption application was gone, picked up by his birth mother after she had a change of heart.

In two days, we were to take a flight out of Los Angeles to Colombo, after labouring over the past 18 months to get to this point. Only now there was no baby to adopt.

Many frantic phone calls followed, and our adoption counsellor in Sri Lanka advised us to make the trip anyway, that we could wait for another child to become available while in the country.

It was impossible to think of going all the way across the world, having already spent so much money, time and effort, with no guarantee that we would return with a child to adopt. But we kept faith in our counsellor, and in our belief that our family was meant to grow this way, and took that leap across the oceans.

How did we get to this point?

We had a beautiful baby girl in 2002. She was funny, smart, healthy – we were so blessed.

As the years went by, Ruvi and I started thinking about a second child. We both cherished our siblings, and continued to enjoy the support and company of our brothers and sisters as adults. We couldn’t imagine our beloved little Rekha not having that support system around her.

So in 2005, when we were told that a second pregnancy would be a significant health risk to the baby, we decided to proceed with adoption to grow our family. The community we belonged to had many examples of foster and adoptive families who demonstrated every day how rich and fulfilling their lives were with their adopted children.

It felt right.

We had two options – to adopt from Sri Lanka (Ruvi’s birthplace) or Malaysia (mine). Sadly, adopting from Malaysia seemed downright impossible.

We did not want to start our child’s life as a lie, so our first principle was to do everything legally. No under-the-table deals, no forged birth certificates. The adoption system in Malaysia seemed difficult.

Sri Lanka was the better alternative as they were signatories to the Hague Adoption Convention, as is the United States. Ruvi was born and raised there, and lo and behold, he had a family friend who worked on international adoptions.

Things then started to fall into place. I got to know the local notary and the UPS store owner on a first name basis, as we had hundreds of documents to get copied, notarised and mailed. We took out a loan to finance the process, and had to get criminal background checks completed in every city we had lived since we were 18, not an easy task for a couple whose lives so far traversed three continents and five US states.

You’ve heard how it takes a village to raise a child? Well, it took the equivalent of a village to help us get through this adoption, from relatives in high places helping with vital documents to prayers from family and friends, supporting us at each step.

The most valuable piece of all this preparation was the Hague Convention requirement - 12 hours of education – which we completed. We learned about when and how to let the baby know she is adopted (as early as possible and with great sensitivity to the child’s ability to comprehend the information), how to prepare our older child for changes to come in sharing her parents’ attention and time, and how to answer that most difficult of questions: “Did my birth mum give me up because she did not love me?”

When our adoption counsellor asked if we had a preference, we kept it open. We did not want any part in “choosing” this child – that would have been like going to the pet store and picking a puppy. I just could not see myself doing that. So I left it in the hands of the counsellor, and ultimately, God, who apparently already had this thing all planned out.

We met our precious baby girl, Aasha, on June 8, 2010. The matron in charge of the maternity ward at the Good Shepherd Convent in Colombo walked into the small, sparse visitors room and handed her to me, and ... I want to say I fell in love at first sight, but it was more than just that.

She simply belonged with us. She was ours, and it felt that way right from the start. The feeling was cemented when we brought Rekha over the next day for a visit, to meet her baby sister. Rekha would not let go of her, and when Aasha started crying, Rekha sang Hush Little Baby and she quieted right down.

We had a few weeks to wait for the adoption to be finalised, and in that time, we could see Aasha during visiting hours.

During one of those visits we met Aasha’s birth mother. She was an unmarried woman from a small remote village, who became pregnant after being assaulted by a stranger. I had so many questions for her, but I did not speak her language and she was too intimidated to speak with Ruvi.

I wanted to know about her family, her childhood, her hopes, her fears. The counsellor tried to ask some of those questions, but the poor woman was so shy and clearly stressed and anxious, so we got precious little information. We took photographs of her, and especially photographs of her holding Aasha.

Many people have asked why we took this route for our adoption.

Ruvi and I had to take a number of classes to prepare for the adoption, and in the process, we learned about the benefits of having an open adoption where the birth parent is invited to be a part of their child’s life on terms determined by the adoptive parents, as well as being open with your child about being adopted.

We read about adoptees finding out only when they were teenagers or older, and the sense of betrayal they felt having been lied to all their lives by those they trusted most.

Many adoptees expressed deep bitterness about losing a sense of who they were as the foundations of their lives were shattered with the revelation of adoption.

There were no benefits to keeping the adoption a secret – and we had an older child anyway, so that was never an option for us. Our adopted baby is now two-and-a-half years old, and I know that question will come up in the next year or so.

We have actually been preparing for it from the day we started this process, by creating a Life Story book for her. We call it Aasha’s Adoption Story, and we’ve just started reading it to her. It details the journey we took from being a family of three to an adoptive family of four.

Ultimately, this is what we want Aasha to know about her beginnings in our family’s life:

- I want her to know how brave it was for her birth mother to continue with her pregnancy when she may have had other options.

- The life of a single, unmarried mother is no cakewalk in most of Asia, especially if one is poor and uneducated. I want Aasha to know that her birth mother loved her so much, she knew she had to give her up so her child could have the life she would not have been able to provide.

- I will tell Aasha that I cannot imagine the pain and heartbreak her birth mother went through to make this agonising decision, and that I don’t think a day goes by that she does not think of the baby she carried for nine months and cared for until she was three months old. I am reminded of the saying: “Children are never really ours, they are just entrusted to us for a time by God.”

I know that Aasha’s birth mother will remember that short period of time she had with her child for the rest of her life.

I will tell Aasha that she is free to look for her birth mother and to seek more information about her whenever she is ready, and that we will be there every step of the way.

Often, well-meaning friends will comment that we have done a wonderful thing, to give this child a life that she would never have otherwise had.

I strongly disagree – it is actually OUR family life that has been changed by this precious, happy, blessing of a child.