Topic: Two mother’s one child

[piersdad]

 

 
In the 1960’s    New Zealand,when a young girl was expecting a baby out of wedlock   the only real solution was to hide her condition and adopt the baby out.
At that time there were a lot of parents who for one reason or another were willing to adopt.
So when we lost our baby we almost straight away applied for adopting a child.  A visit from the social welfare and endless questions answered and soon we got the go ahead to adopt.
Our first call was to an orphanage, and although there were many children to choose from, none of the lovely babies really clicked with us.
         We already had one boy and were looking for another boy with at least vaguely similar feelings towards it.
    As my wife was adopted, we then returned to the same adoption home she had come from.
The ‘Home of Compassion’ was a small maternity home run by nuns and when we arrived there we were ushered into a lovely reception room.
       We felt nervous in such posh surroundings; soon we were interviewed by one of the nuns.
 This second interview was to give the nuns a good idea of our background so that they could select a baby from similar family background.
Well we returned home and waited and after just a few weeks we got a phone call to come in and visit the home.
       With our 2 year old boy we returned to the home hoping that they will have a baby for us.
The same posh reception room and a nun soon appeared with a tiny bundle of joy,
It was a boy, and as soon as we saw him, we just felt he was just the child we wanted. We called him Michael and wondered what his real mother would have called him.  We felt so sad for the mother who for some reason had to give up her precious baby and vowed to look after him as if he was our own.
We so much would have wanted to hug her and tell her how much we loved her for her sacrifice and wished he well in her absence.
Our first port of call was to an extended family grand parents where we showed the new baby to them and gave him a feed before returning home.
Home again and we now had 2 boys.  Later on we added another girl by adoption and then a last girl of our own after a difficult pregnancy.
Over the years we brought up a very happy well balanced family and as they grew up and did well at school we always were just as proud of the adopted ones as our own.
Years went by and all the trials and tribulations of a growing family were overcome.
After we shifted to the other end of the country we started to take on some foster children and at one time we had as much as 7 children but we loved them all.
Our son by this time had become a very skilled printer and traveled the world
Picking up jobs along the way till one day he met a lovely girl in Australia,  that was it, the girl he was searching the world for. She was from Switzerland but that was no hurdle and after she returned home our son lost no time getting back to her and eventually they got married.
By the time they had a family of 3 we really were proud grand parents and still wondered  what our sons real mother  was like and how proud she would have been if she knew how well her son had done,
Tracing the mothers of adopted children was   much more relaxed now and soon we started a determined effort to find out who our sons mum was.
After a few months we finally got a letter from a lady who would act as a go between for us, and had found out our boys mum was called p------.
Days went by and we thought    will p------ contact us?
The phone went and a voice at the other end said.
“I’m p------ and you don’t know me”
I interrupted her and said
“Thanks for the lend of your son”

Well the tears flowed and I proudly told p----- how well her boy had done. and she was the a proud grandmother of three wonderful grand children
P---- had a family of her own some 10 years younger than our son and what a proud grand mother she suddenly found out she was.
The next day my wife   got out all the family photos, then put together a photo album of all the growing up pictures of our son

Her friends found out the good news and all put a contribution together and paid for her to fly to P---- with the precious pictures and meet the mother of our adopted son.
Today there are two families and children with many grandparents and the   long trip to the other side of the world is no hurdle for a visit every few years between the families.

here is a tale  when my wife (called jane in the story) located her family url=http://www.storydad.com/forum

a visit to the airport

[lady7777]

It is a such nice story. To say the true (sad to say ) in my country (Argentina)is very difficult to someone who decide to adopt a child to do that . There is a lot of   
bureaucracy that a couple have to put up with adopting a baby .Because of  people sometimes give up the idea of adoption and look for another easy way. Maybe if you have contacts or eventually you give a big bribe you can adopt a baby otherwise it is very difficult. Is it difficult to adopt a baby in your country ?

[piersdad]

In  New Zealand today, if you want to adopt, there is a long waiting list and can take many years now as most girls in trouble ether become solo ( single) parents or have abortion.
One of our nicest jobs was to look after new born babies for a few weeks till the parents who wanted to adopt them were able to have their new baby.

[lady7777]

Thank you for you repply. Actually i have never thought to adopt a baby yet .However it is a very good option for a couple who want to have a baby and they can't for any reason. Some people is not biased to tell to their son that he was adopted because parents are afraid of children woudn't love in the same way that if  they were natural son .Although psycoanalist and specialist say that the best is say the true to their children   

[piersdad]

yes always tell your adopted children from soon as you can. with words like "you are our adopted boy and we just love you to" and just put it in everyday words as if it was nothing special.
a comment from my adopted son to my own son one day during an argument.

adopted son said in anger  "mum HAD to have you   I WAS  chosen."
and this was the way it was in our family as when my wife (who was adopted) found out she was adopted  when she was 10 years old (i think) she was very upset.

[lady7777]

Iwill keep it in mind , thank you for your comments .BTW , very nice forum is this !

[Kerri Byrd]

Very touching!