19 hours

I got a text from Gerry yesterday: call your mom – there is a baby for adoption in India. My heart stopped for a few seconds and I finally got a hold of her after a few tries. In India, they have apparently banned gender screening due to the high number of abortions of baby girls so now more girls are being put forward for adoption – reasons due to poverty and traditional views of dowries, gender roles and sons providing for their elders.

My uncle in India told us a family who has known our family for over 40 years just had their third baby girl. She is one day old. The family is quite poor and cannot even pay for the cesarean section. They were not selling their baby, only wanting her to be with Gerry and I so that she is provided with all the opportunities they could not give her. My aunt said the elder sisters were completely healthy, and very cute and fair skinned with slightly Asian eyes. It seemed perfect yet I knew there could be some huge obstacles.

Thoughts were going back and forth in my head about whether we are ready…this could take 6 months or maybe a year for the process to complete. I’m finishing my Master’s degree, we are doing the “last round” of treatment soon (albeit you never know what is the last round until you get there). This news was sudden but I needed to look into the process.

I inquired with the agency in BC who rejected us earlier this year to start the regular adoption process because our infertility treatments were not completed yet, and we needed to “mourn” our childlessness.  They said relative adoptions are possible but I needed to contact the agency out of Toronto that they work with for all adoptions in India. Immigration looks at these adoptions carefully to ensure there is no child trafficking of older kids, and that they are brought over under the applied circumstances i.e. not to sponsor a child for their education where they should be applying for immigration under a different route. She said that our case for a newborn adoption would be less bureaucratic.

I then called a social worker in Toronto and I spoke to someone very briefly. She said she would call me back in 10 minutes but did not. With the time difference it was likely too late in the day.

At dinner, Gerry and I both admitted we were starting to feel a bit excited, We felt ready. I googled and googled and found out that the current guidelines for relative adoptions were in revisions, and have been for a while – uh oh. I knew how Indian bureaucracy works and even though they said it will be done in a couple months from now I had my doubts. We knew that relative adoption would be scrutinized and thought private adoption could be possible. We did not want to be blacklisted for any reason if our application got rejected, but knew we got screwed over before in the adoption process for being too honest about our infertility treatments. Knowing this may not be possible in either route, I still started to visualize what this baby girl looked like. I thought of a possible name. 

The social worker called me back this morning. I asked them how relative adoptions work and how much of a distance the relation can be, and if there needs to be a biological/blood connection or if the relation could be through an in-law. I also asked if the relation was too distant, can the birthparents simply choose us as the adoptive parents. Finally, where does the child get placed during this process as I was worried about the birthparents changing their minds and if the child is placed in an orphanage how long would it be. She said there are a number of issues in play:

• ·    India’s guidelines have been under review for the past 18 months and their assurances to have them complete month after month keeps getting delayed. They currently have forty families who have been waiting to adopt relatives, including newborns, for the past 3-5 years. Their applications are completely on hold until these guidelines, which are ironically intended to speed up adoptions for children under the age of three, are completed.
• ·    They would like to see a severance with the birthparents, otherwise questions arise as to why the child cannot be cared for.  The child should ideally be placed with another family member in the interim. A local orphanage may not take them due to the circumstances and their resources, and if the child is abandoned there without a legal agreement, the child is available to any domestic or international couple on the waitlist.
• ·    The more distance the relation, the more it will be scrutinized and viewed as a private adoption. Private adoptions are prohibited internationally for those countries under the Hague Treaty. I didn’t ask why but suspect it is to avoid the selling of children.
• ·    They are willing to review if this relation would hold up to standards established under the Hague Treaty but forewarns with all the other obstacles, the regular adoption process, even though at a minimum of $40,000 and 2-3 year wait, may be a better route.

And then 19 hours after receiving that first text message, the partially inflated balloon slowly let out all its air…. a baby girl in India will end up in someone else’s arms.