Season Two, Episode One

If our first adoption was like navigating our way through a minefield then our second adoption, that of our little girl, was more of a ground offensive with us as the target suffering barrage after barrage of incoming fire. We were the French troops at Dien Bien Phu, Picket's confederates at Gettysburg – out-gunned and out-manoeuvred no matter which way we turned or to whom we appealed.
A 15-month long emotional assault with weekly incoming sucker punches. Finding our way to our daughter opened our eyes to the scandalous industry that is the South African social welfare community and its lackey, the 2005 Children's Act, to be fair it's the regulations that govern the act rather than the act itself.
You could comfortably say that by the time we had her in our arms we had seen it all, heard it all and felt it all. We were raw, frustrated on every possible level and in no doubt as to where adoptive parents feature on this particular food chain – they don't even make it up the first rung.
So, when in March I accompanied my son to his friend's fourth birthday party, and the mum's got talking, as is our want, and the conversation turned to sharing our boys with girls when they're older (every mother's nightmare), I was blindsided and struck cold with these words:
"I'm so glad I only have boys [three] because at least then when they're older and they impregnate [sic] a girl it's not their problem."
This mum has no idea how lucky she is that by this stage our daughter had been safely home and warmly bonding with us for a year and that this had not taken place at said boy's third birthday party.
Of course I was astounded by this archaic thinking (thankfully I wasn't the only one), but having lived and breathed every word of the Act and its regulations – which now grants equal rights to the biological father as the biological mother – my jugular began to twitch.
Both biological parents must sign consent for a child to be 'adaptable'. Once consent is signed, either or both have 60 days in which to change their minds and rescind said consent. How often do you imagine the birth father is around to sign consent?
In the absence of his presence an advertisement must be placed in one local, one regional and one national newspaper for a period of 90 days. If he does not respond to that he forfeits his rights as a parent.
These two chunks of the new born's life do not run concurrent to one another.
The above opinion on the boy's responsibility is not, unfortunately, unique. So the baby waits at a place of safety for five months. But wait, that's not all. The government in it's questionable attempt to place children with adoptive parents of the same race, "so they don't loose their culture," instituted a national register, known as RACAP (Register of Adoptive Children and Adoptive Parents). The Act states that this register is simply to keep a record of children who are adoptable and screened adoptive parents. It even makes sense: at any time an adoption agency or accredited social worker can have a look at the weekly updated list and know exactly where a child or parents may be found.
That's what RACAP is on the outside. Inside it is a festering cancer of racism, because the real purpose of it is to give black couples (who by the way can adopt from birth) an extended opportunity (a further 30 days) to adopt any black child on that register. Again this period does not run concurrently.
Six months. That's how old the baby will be before it may legally be placed with a loving couple – desperate to start a family and shower a child with love and opportunity.
So tell me Party Mom, when will that attitude change so that the millions of unwanted children can at least have a chance at a happy, fulfilled life? Because here's the rub: couples who want to adopt, want newborn babies, or babies as young as possible. They don't want to miss a moment. And they certainly don't want to miss three months of their child's life because 'it wasn't your son's responsibility'.

Dodging the mines to adopt in South Africa

Three years ago I became, not depressed, but flat, restless and unhappy. This is the antithesis of me. I’m upbeat, have more energy than I can use in a day and am a positive person. I laugh a lot and I had stopped laughing. I have a big smile and I had stopped smiling. And I felt enormously guilty.

I had everything. Perfect husband, a close relationship with my family, a small close circle of friends, the perfect job, a lovely home and yet I couldn’t get one thought out of my head: is this it? I felt so guilty about this recurring thought that I didn’t tell My husband because it would make me seem ungrateful and because, more importantly, make him feel awful.

After a while of this torture, just like that, in a flash I realized what it was: I had the capacity in my life for more and that more was children. Up to that point I thought I didn’t want children so the idea that I wanted to be a mom was farthest from my mind.

When I discussed this revelation with My husband he was excited and we immediately set about that dreadful word ‘trying’. Because that’s what it became, very, very trying. I’m the kind of person that when I want something I want it now. It takes me time to make the decision but once I’ve made it, I want it to happen now. And it didn’t. Not that month, not the following month, not the following year (or two or three) and not after four AIs and two IVFs.

Infertility has been referred to as a complex life crisis, psychologically threatening and emotionally stressful. That single sentence blandly sums up a world of obsession, tension, financial burden, mechanical sex, weekly dietary changes, herbal remedies, blame, self-loathing, indignity, embarrassment, jealously … all neatly cloaked in the myriad things that accompany hormone treatment. It’s a living nightmare, hideous on so many levels. So much so that when our fertility doc said we needed to look at donor sperm my brain flipped. No. No more. Even though My husband was happy to continue I just couldn’t do it. And he respected that.

Over the years we’d touched on the topic of adoption, once, fairly seriously, around the dinner table with my folks. And in that minute when the doc was talking donor sperm and R80,000 I knew without a doubt that I wanted to adopt.

We went home and Googled ‘adoption’. Clicked the first entry, a private agency and phoned. We were told in implicit terms that they were no longer taking on couples who wanted white babies, their waiting list was just too long, and they were only doing trans-racial adoptions. Oddly the idea of adopting a white child had never really taken hold with us. The few concerns we had about adopting a black child were mine, not My husband’s. I worried about two things: would this baby feel like mine and would the child, growing up, experience unfair challenges about having white parents. Finally, what had become my mom’s mantra sank in: a child is a child.

At the introductory meeting with our social worker she said something, which I know she came to regret (and she’ll smile and concur): the process happens as quickly as you drive it. So I drove it. We completed the intensive screening process in six weeks. For the first time I felt empowered. I was now playing an active part in our starting a family and even if these activities were psych evaluations, medicals, affidavits, police clearances, extensive in-depth interviews, I was driving it and I was doing. In between evaluations on the strength of our marriage, financial status and individual psyches I was teaching myself how to sew, making my first, gorgeous baby quilt, sanding down and varnishing the wooden floor in the baby’s room, getting ready.

Then the bomb dropped and my world fell apart, again. I really wanted a little girl. I know why. Because my mom and I have such an incredibly close relationship, I wanted that too. The final step in the screening process is the home visit. After our social worker had ascertained that we actually did live in a house, we sat down to talk about ‘our’ baby and I asked how long it would take. She said that there was no telling, that we would have to wait; it could be six months, it could be a year.

That was it; the past three years came flooding out in uncontrollable, ugly, snotty sobs. Not wise in front of your social worker when you want to portray the picture of stability. When I went to wash my face and blow my nose she told My husband she was worried about me. Fortunately My husband, in his calm way, was able to alleviate her fears. When I came back she said it was because we wanted a girl. In general women keep their daughters so there are far more boys available than girls. She also told us about a four-month-old little boy – in fact she had mentioned him to us a few times over the previous few weeks – whom she felt would be a perfect match, but cautioned us against taking ‘second prize’. Discuss it and come back to me, she told us.

Three things happened. One: we went for a long walk and realized that what we’d hoped for and prayed for, for so long, was right there, in front of us, yet we were still looking all around it for something else. Two: Mom said, “Just because you might have a daughter doesn’t mean that you’ll have the relationship that you and I do.” Three, and probably the most important: before we left for our walk we phoned my folks and explained all that had happened. Mom said she needed time to mull it over and talk to my dad. Throughout the years of us trying to start a family my dad had not said a word; he kept his council throughout. When we got home I phoned. Dad answered – another thing that never happens – and he said, “Sometimes the things in life that are most unexpected work out the best.”

We met our little boy on a Wednesday afternoon. I cried as I held him in my arms and he laughed and smiled and gurgled as though he’d known me his entire four months. He chose us that day and we chose him.

Although I was mad about him and drank him in at every possible moment it took time for the feeling that I was looking after someone else’s child to go away and for quite a while I over-compensated with him emotionally; my mom straightened me out on that. A little while ago I found myself, quite seriously, explaining to My husband why Luke was going to be tall. Mid-explanation I realized that his height and physical characteristics had and would never have anything to do with us. But in every other way, he is our child and we could not love him more if he was biologically ours, In fact we believe we love him more because we chose each other on that beautiful Wednesday afternoon a week before Christmas.