A couple of weeks ago I was privileged to attend a media conference marking the start of National Adoption Awareness Week. I will preface what I have to say with the fact that I was grossly uninformed about adoption. Grossly meaning I knew nothing at all about it.
The media conference was an amazing experience in itself, held in a swanky hotel where they served teeny, tiny little yoghurts and bite sized portions of Eggs Benedict to the delegates and I got to see the woman who sleeps with Hugh Jackman, er I mean Deborra-lee Furness, speaking so passionately about something she believes in so strongly.
I wrote a piece about intercountry adoption for mamamia.com.au which you can read here. I focussed only on intercountry adoption even though I am well aware of the plight of many local Australians without families/homes/ love and care- so don’t remind me of that, I know. I tried so hard to be non emotional and factual and speak without bias or prejudice because, as I said, I am not an expert in adoption and I have no actual personal experience in that area.
And although I have now done quite a bit of research into intercountry adoption, I am still no expert. I have some knowledge from the books that I have read, the legislation I have studied and the many, many opinions and stories on websites that I have perused. That knowledge is important – it helps me understand the backgrounds to the law and the reasoning and rationale behind what lobby groups are campaigning for and why some people are so passionate and some people are so angry and countless people are just so sad.
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But I cannot help feeling that information will always be tinted with the images that I saw at the media conference and the impassioned, compassionate and extremely knowledgeable voices of Deborra-lee Furness and Dr Aronson.
The rows and rows of cots with little babies with no parents and virtually no hope. The children growing up on the street in abject filth and poverty. These children, who are no different to the children of my friends, the children in my son’s class except for the one thing that has dictated the course of their entire future – they have nobody in a position to love and care for them. You don’t have to have experience to feel your heart break, you just have to have a heart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0-B4Qo3-oM&feature=player_embedded
Wow lana! Great post! Both here and mm!! my childhood best friend who I was catching up wig the other day, her parents adopted a small Thai boy when she and I were13! I remember how expensive it was and the process of scrutiny they went thru was nothing short of arduous!!!
Great post and very emotive topic. I too was grossly uninformed (ignorant?) about adoption, inter-country or otherwise, until I was privileged enough to meet some gorgeous ladies on line through an infertility forum, who had been through it.
Both of these women went through an extremely lengthy, expensive, frustrating and heart wrenching journey to try to achieve their dream of having a family, but only one came out the other side with a child (or 2 as it happens!) in their arms. The other, after around 7 years, has decided (been forced?) to let her dream go and move on with her life.
It saddens and angers me that there are so many children out there who desperately need a loving family, as well as loving couples desperate to envelop a child with their love and care, yet so much red tape and bureaucracy that stands in their way.
Ahh so you are the one who wrote that post on mamamia. Thank you for that post! I felt your emotion and it was definitely an interesting topic. I’m still young, but adoption is something I’ve thought about. It definitely isn’t easy. All those children who have no one to care and love them…it’s heart breaking.
I wonder if the arduous process makes the parents more appreciative of receiving the child… not that this is a motivation for those that make the process so long ($).