When I was younger, I never thought that I would want to become a parent. But things changed; I fell in love with a wonderful man in varsity and, now, at the age of 33, we are still together.
But when I fell ill with an auto-immune disease, it was evident that I would never be able to carry my own children. At first I didn’t care, until one day, I realised I did want a child with my husband.
So, four years ago our journey started towards discovering our various options to become parents that would not place me in danger. We decided to first go the gestational surrogacy route, and for a year we searched for a surrogate along with a well-known fertility clinic.
Finally we found her but following a bumpy road, we decided that the surrogacy route was not the best option.
Even though the disappointment had us in utter despair and made us completely turn against the process, we eventually decided to continue with our quest to become parents.
Two years ago we applied to be added to a list at an adoption agency. Only in May this year did we receive a phone call from the adoption agency, telling us that we are on the new list. This is after the list of prospective parents was closed.
We were called to a day seminar with other couples who were considered as possible adoptive parents. We were furnished with piles of paperwork to complete in order to get an interview with the agency.
Documents required to kick-start the process varied, such as a letter from our church, medical documentation to prove that I cannot have children, and registration papers to be added to the National Child Protection Register.
Late July, we finally got the call that we could come for our first interview, which lasted five hours.
The next step is a group session to discuss further information about who we are – abilities, passions, the work we do and family history.
Individual interviews by a psychologist along with another round of interviews will then hopefully follow the group session.
Upon completion of this rather exhaustive and intensive process will a few from the original group of prospective parents be able to adopt.
But then there is also the waiting list of four years. So, until then there is no planning for a baby, no excitement and no baby room. You just go on with your life, hoping that someone will give up their baby.
To be honest, I think all prospective parents, and not just the ones trying to adopt, should go through this gruelling process to be able to become a parent. This might help minimise the astonishing rate of child abandonment, child-headed households and unstable people being able to have children.
Why should adoptive parents only be subjected to such a psychological barrage? A parent remains a parent – if it be to adopt or if be biological.
I believe there is a gross imbalance between those who desperately want a family, having to resort to means such as adoption, and those who have the ability to give life yet by choice abandon their children.
Do we not live in a rather unfair and unjust world?
When a recent research study by Dee Blackie, consultant to the National Adoption Coalition South Africa was released, I was shocked at how people who have the precious gift to give life take such an ability for granted.
Orphans have increased to over 30 per cent more in the last decade and there were only 29 possible parents for around 429 children registered on Registry of Adoptable Children and Parents last year. Only 1 699 adoptions took place in 2013, from 2 840 in 2004.
There is much coverage of the declining rates of adoption in South Africa, sometimes associated with the implementation of the new Children’s Act, but most frequently with ‘cultural barriers’.
Many child protection experts voiced concerns that the Act is being used as a tool to prevent adoption rather than to facilitate it by both the Courts and the Department of Social Development (DSD).
Cross-race adoption is also stated as being a contentious issue, with many adoptive parents sharing experiences of judgement and discrimination from social workers, the DSD and from society at large.
The physical act of abandonment is a traumatic and alienating experience for a child – they go from the warmth and familiarity of their mother to a strange environment with strange people, from breast milk to a bottle, and they are given a range of medical tests to assess their health.
Why not just make it so much easier and provide them with loving parents as soon as possible?
But, in the meantime, we hold out hope to one day become parents, because we know our child is waiting for us.
And it doesn’t matter that the child does not share in my DNA.
