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First published by Random House India 2011 Copyright © Nandini Sengupta 2011 All rights reserved 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 ISBN 9788184001907 Typeset in Berling by Pen2print Media Solution, Okhla

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To my darling, Kiki Thank you for choosing me to be your Mamma

Contents

Foreword by Sushmita Sen Preface

ix xiii

1.

The Decision

1

2.

The Process

35

3.

Baby Comes Home

59

4.

Talking Adoption

87

5.

Teen Tantrums

129

6.

Fighting Prejudice

159

7.

Networking

177

8.

The Legal Angle

191

9.

Adopting an Older or Abused Child

205

10. Single Parents

231

11. Biological and Adoptive Mixed Households

243

Appendix: List of Abbreviations

Foreword

Oprah Winfrey once said, ‘Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.’ Anyone can give birth. That’s biology. But it takes a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and smiles to be a Mum. Anyone who has experienced it knows that being a mum is no piece of cake. It’s messy, tiresome, and exhausting. But it’s also uplifting, exhilarating, and life-affirming. It makes us complete. It makes us want to be a better human being. I have always wanted to be a mother. After I won the Miss Universe crown, my humanitarian duties included projects for children. It isn’t surprising that my winning answer—‘The origin of a child is a mother, a woman; woman is sharing, she shows a man what sharing, caring, and loving is all about’—was on the essence of a woman. To me, my role as a mother to my two beautiful girls, Renee and Alisah, is the one that I cherish the most. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. But beyond the rough and tumble of a life under the arc lights lies the joy

Babies from the Heart

of coming home to my babies. Of sharing chocolates and confidences. Of good night tales and naughty corners. Of school work and home play. The little nameless unremembered acts that make me who I am. It’s my ultimate elixir. That’s probably why I chose to became a mother so early. I am a successful actress but I didn’t want my career or the search for a partner to come in the way of my desire to be a mother. I wanted to experience the highs and lows, I wanted to hold my baby in my arms and watch her fall asleep listening to the rhythm of my heartbeat. I knew life would find me my ideal partner when the time is right. But I didn’t want to wait for the ideal moment to be a mother. For me, the right time was now. That’s why I chose to be a mother from the heart. I chose adoption. My decision to adopt was in many ways a huge learning experience. Parenting is never easy. And adoptive parenting much less so. Having gone through the process of adopting two little girls, I now know what scores of parents, particularly single mums like me, go through when they sign up for adoption. There’s plenty of paperwork that needs to be taken care of, the legal process is also a bit lengthy, there are huge amounts

x

Foreword

of rules and regulations that you need to abide by and of course, when it’s time for disclosure, you need to answer your child with honesty and love. Nothing else will do. That’s why I am happy that a book like Babies from the Heart will now be available to all those adoptive parents who don’t know where to start their search for parenthood. A handy guide about the legal, procedural, emotional, medical, and other aspects of adoptive parenting is both timely and absolutely necessary. It’s also touching that the book takes its title from something I told my daughter Renee many years ago. When she asked me if she was born from my tummy, I told her, ‘You were born from my heart.’ Adoptive parenting is all about that special bond. It’s a bond born from the heart, and Babies from the Heart celebrates that bond, gently handholding first-time parents through the process. An adoptive parent herself, the author handles the subject with personal warmth. I wish I had something like this to turn to when I first became a proud adoptive mother. Ask any mum, adoptive or biological, and she’ll tell you motherhood has little to do with genes. It’s about love—heartfelt, true, and tender. It’s about putting

xi

Babies from the Heart

your child first, always. It’s about thinking outside of yourself. It’s about holding on. It’s about letting go. That’s the essence of being a mother. That’s also the essence of being a woman. I should know. I am both. Sushmita Sen August, 2011 Mumbai

xii

Preface

When Kiki, our beautiful adopted baby girl, our bundle of joy and the love of my life, first came home more than three years ago, she turned our lives upside down and inside out. Back then, we found ourselves turning increasingly to fellow adoptive parents in our wider circle of friends and acquaintances—people who could give us valuable tips on what to do and how to do it, and how to make sense of the jumble of emotions we were going through. A number of friends offered help with the choice of the agency; others gave tips on how to handle the tricky issue of biologic versus adoptive parents; and still others offered help and information on the legal process of becoming adoptive parents. That handholding was invaluable for us because it prepared us for the most important and challenging role of our lives and gave us some parameters to measure everything by. It’s a little bit like asking your mum, aunt, and other members of the family about what to expect when you’re expecting and how best to enjoy your baby once she’s born. In the case of adoptive

Babies from the Heart

parents, there are aspects to parenting which only other adoptive parents can help out with and that’s how the idea of this book was born. I have been researching for this book for nearly two years, talking to adoptive parents, prospective adoptive parents, and even couples who, for reasons of their own, decided not to go in for adoption. As more and more couples, both double-income-no-kids variety like us as well as those who already have biological children, opt for adoption, a handy guide to adoptive parenting looked like a very good idea. All the answers to the issues raised in this book have been culled either from our own experience as parents or from the experiences of one or more of the couples I spoke to while researching this book. I have, for the sake of the privacy of some of the couples interviewed for this book, changed the names of both the parents as well as the child. These names have been marked with an asterisk. However, I have left the names unchanged in those cases where the couples were okay with being quoted. I have also consulted experts Professor Daniel Close, University of Oregon; Vinita Bhargava, author of Adoption in India: Policies and Experiences; Deborah D. Gray, author of Attaching in Adoption; and Lois Ruksai Melina, author of Raising Adopted Children. I am deeply indebted to them. xiv

Preface

I would like to thank every single adoptive parent I have spoken to while researching for this book. Interacting with so many wonderful parents, hearing your stories, sharing your lives as it were, has been an incredible experience. I truly believe these interactions have helped me become a better, more understanding, less confused parent, as indeed I hope they will help the readers of this book. I would also like to thank the Random House team for their help, constant handholding, and clarity of vision on how they wanted this book to shape up. I am immensely grateful to my husband who has been patiently pestering me for years to ‘get on with the book’ and my mother from whom I liberally borrow ideas on parenting. And last but not the least, I would like to thank my dear friend Reshmi Dasgupta for her unstinted help in getting me a wider circle of couples to talk to, and simply doing everything she could to make this book become more than just an idea in my head. Babies from the Heart is not an empirical exercise. It is a heartfelt effort at trying to make sense of what’s certainly the most wonderful experience of our lives. If it helps even a single parent, answers a single query, or allays a single doubt, I will consider my job well done. Happy parenting! xv

Non-Fiction

Front cover photograph by Photosindia

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