They are not blood of my blood. Nor flesh of my flesh. But there is no one and nothing more precious to me in the whole world.
I am talking about my daughters. Every mother feels this way about her children. In my case, people are surprised by how completely and utterly my children and I belong to each other. Why? Because both my girls are adopted. They were born from my heart.
I always wanted children. Went from being a favourite didi to a favourite aunty but the road to Mamma was not easy. I had medical issues which made conception difficult. Even at 22, when I was first diagnosed, I was very clear I would be a mother. If the Universe didn’t want me to bear a child, then it would make me a mother in some other way.
My husband was supportive of me throughout. Once I started talking adoption, we needed to talk through and discuss any reservations he might have had. And we did. Talk and talk and talk…
This was 17-18 years ago. We knew no one who had adopted. It was a taboo subject for many. One by one, we saw little miracles. A friend’s mother gave me a book called ‘Ours by Choice’. It answered many of our questions. Then we got transferred to Pune, a city with several adoption agencies, one of them 3 minutes from our home!
To cut a long story short… we registered; we completed our paperwork; we waited… and just 6 months later we met our baby for the very first time. She was 3 months old and captured my heart the second I saw her. This was not a cutely smiling baby who curled her little hand around my finger. She was hot, angry, bawling her head off… and just like that, in that instant, she was mine. She’s nearly 17 now and every day I love her more…
Fate, geography and ill health made it impossible for us to adopt again for 9 years. I was already 38 but I wanted two children. I wanted my daughter to have a sibling. And so, we brought our second daughter home. For my older one, it was an amazing experience. Going through the entire process, seeing how much this baby was wanted and loved from before we even saw her… it answered many questions that she probably didn’t even know she had.
And yes, my girls know they are adopted. They love the story of how they came to us. They’ve been hearing it since they were babies. I tell them how grateful I am to the birth mothers who could not take care of them but wanted them to have good lives, loving homes. My younger one proudly boasts about her 2 mammas, my older one likes to keep it under wraps. Their choices, their decisions… I respect both. And that is why I write this story anonymously. It is the story of their lives that they will share when and with whom they feel comfortable.
On my part, I couldn’t be a prouder Mamma!
