I adopted my daughter (Indian Express)

 

It’s 9:48 pm. As I put my eight-month-old to bed, my lower back and frozen shoulders sigh: One more day down. I wonder why everyone says, “They grow up too fast!”.

I go over my mental to-do list for the day to gauge how I fared with the baby:
Protein: Check
Fruits and vegetables: Check
Supplements: Check
Learning and development through toys and activities: Check
Exposure to nature and socialising through stroller walk: Check
Exposure to music by playing baby Mozart and Indian devotional songs: Check
Diaper-free time: Check

However, there’s always room to learn, and do more and better when it comes to a baby. So, I open a moms’ group on WhatsApp meant for discussions about newborn to about six-month-old babies. On this group, I have found recommendations for the best wet wipe, inquired about others’ experiences in dealing with their children’s constipation, got educated about products like steriliser bags which I didn’t know about, and more. This group (and others on social media) consists of moms. Period. They could be mothers through the biological route or adoption or surrogacy. There is no mention as to which mom is an adoptive parent and hence no way to know otherwise. Moms are moms. Except that I learnt our trials and tribulations are very different.

I underwent IVF cycles which were torturous on my mind and body both. My friends and relatives who have carried babies in their womb tell me that the dreamy baby-bump photoshoots are a fraud. The reality is nausea, back pain, and an unwieldy body.

In the adoptive-parent community, we guesstimate when our bundle will arrive based on when our peers with similar dates of registration and choices, like the age bracket of the child, received theirs. My “pregnancy” was so smooth that I didn’t even realise when I was in my first trimester, second trimester, third trimester or had already popped the baby as the child matched with us could be of any age within the chosen two-year bracket.

If the birthing complications, labour pain, and physical recovery from a C-section were not enough, I learnt from the Whatsapp group about the complications in breastfeeding. On one hand were the full-spectrum issues on the demand (baby) side from hard latch to breast refusal whereas on the supply side were problems ranging from low to excess milk production (leading to a serious medical condition called mastitis). And then there was the pumping and correct storing of milk to match the demand and supply. I was happy I didn’t have to put my mind into buying the right breast-pump or consulting a lactation expert. I would gleefully skim through the majority of the messages, mentally checking them off as non-applicable. However, I wondered if our greatest pain-point in life was justified: Getting up once in the middle of the night, reaching for the Dr Brown’s bottle on the bedside table, pouring lukewarm water in it from a thermos, downing pre-measured formula into it, shaking the bottle, and dunking it in the baby’s mouth.

One avenue for respite for the mother could be savouring food and beverages that she enjoys but apparently the baby’s colic doesn’t like the exact same menu. A breastfeeding mom shared on the group that she detected that wheat and coffee made her baby cry incessantly and so she had to eliminate those from her diet. Interestingly, colic bids farewell at about three months of age and that is the earliest that a child becomes legally free for adoption: It takes a couple of months for the child to be registered in the adoption system after ensuring there is no claim from his/her family. We were blessed with our daughter when she was a quarter of a year old and we both have lived happily ever after: She is relishing her formula milk and I have enjoyed not having to follow any formula. I continue to devour my papdi chaat (a tangy and spicy snack) and masala chai guilt-free. To each her own (gas).

Adoption may entail a long wait to get the baby in your arms, but I thought it’s a shortcut to all of the above. So whenever I feel like I’m dealing with a lot, I surf the Whatsapp group and sleep peacefully: Feeling a deep respect for biological moms and gratitude that I’m not one.

(Read the article on Indian Express website here!)

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Managing the tricky art of breaking the news of a baby (Mint Lounge)

 

“It’s a girl!”

Scratch that.

It wasn’t a surprise: We chose to have a daughter over a son.

 

“Born on …”

Delete.

Who sends a baby announcement after 3.5 months?

“Weighing…”

Erase.

Our delicate darling’s kilos were nothing worth flaunting about.

 

I was making a creative on Canva to share the homecoming of our heart baby with select friends on WhatsApp when I realised that the templates for a baby announcement needed major tweaking for our kind of good news.

We had decided we would not broadcast our adopted daughter’s arrival but would share it with a handful of people, including close connections, fellow adoptive parents we knew, and my husband’s team members who will need to discount his dozing off during meetings.

We were hoping that our outer circle would come to know that we have a child when our daughter is 2-3 years old, which is past the stage of “OMG, Congratulations!” and a suite of questions about sleepless nights, timeline of my pregnancy and their memory of my bump.

But contrary to my plan, the word about our daughter got around faster.

The three of us were invited to a birthday party of a toddler whose parents we liked in our apartment building. While the hosts knew about the new addition in our family, other parents of children who lived in the same building and were invited to the party expressed their surprise on suddenly seeing us with a stroller and diaper bag. I had bumped into one of the moms randomly while walking downstairs on an average of two times per month in the last two years that we had been living in this community. She was the type who would check you out from top to bottom while saying the cursory “Hi”. At the party, she told me she didn’t notice that I was pregnant last year. I merely gave her the sweetest smile ever.

Then there is the naïve type who doesn’t know how to be politically correct. One woman I had crossed paths with while coming out of the elevator with the stroller, parroted multiple times that she never saw my bump, as if her saying the same thing repeatedly would eventually get me to open my mouth about it. I gave her the same harmless smile as if to say, “Interpret it as you please: surrogacy, adoption or some divine intervention.”

There is also the suave sort who know how to mask their surprise with the right thing to say: “You don’t look like you delivered six months back!” I smiled and thanked her, adding, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

When we realised that there was no escaping people who live in the same apartment complex, we decided to throw a small “bless our baby” party, inviting a few fellow residents. Everything was going fine until a kid mentioned how much he loved the YouTube series Ninja Kidz and added emphatically that one of the kids in it is adopted. An awkward silence ensued.

Comparatively, our adoptive-parent friends who brought their child home during covid had it easy. Opening the door of your house after the lockdown years and having two-and-a-half people emerging from it didn’t raise an eyebrow.

But our awkward conversations were not just because of being seen. Our absence also raised questions: An inquisitive acquaintance, who is part of a social group that my husband and I are also a part of, noticed that we have been MIA for a few months. She pushed us into a corner till we told her. We had to tell her how special she is to us that we were divulging this precious news to her and hardly anyone else. We figured she would find out at some point.

We were not only caught out by our physical presence or absence; even the online arena didn’t spare us. I didn’t post pictures of our baby on Instagram. However, I did ask for recommendations for cute beach-wear brands for infants on a women’s WhatsApp group that shares suggestions on everything from doctors to restaurants at exotic holiday destinations to tailors for alterations. In the fraction of a second, one of the girls on the group who I meet once a quarter at social events messaged me directly asking if I was expecting. I replied I have a 6-month-old, and left her wondering.

Our intent behind not broadcasting our adoption is not to hide that we became parents through this channel. It is to disclose about our baby only to emotionally sensitive and mature people who will not say a version of “She’s so lucky to have you both as parents” or “You did such a noble deed by adopting.” Considering the long wait from filing the papers to bringing your child home, it is clear that adoption is no charity.

So, I punched in to the Canva search bar “heart baby announcement”, and that displayed a template with a few hearts strung on a thread. We sent out the creative, hoping the recipients get the subtle reference. Those who don’t can keep deciphering it like they do my mysterious smile.

(Read the article on Mint website here)

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