Adoption is a word that needs to be used with a lot of care and post a
lot of preparation within an Indian Family. Post all that preparation
my husband and I went forward to various centers in Hyderabad (We were
there then!) to get the process rolling. Unfortunately for us, there
was a child racket going on in Hyd around that time, and the adoption
procedures there came to a standstill. So decided to get things moving
in Pune where my friend had adopted a couple of years back. Went for a
visit to the Hospital cum adoption center and met up the kind folks and
came back with dreams.
They said that a huge list of things that were
required, would be sent later to us. When the list came we were
stumped.
- Medical certificate of infertility (Hmmm...Did Angeline
Jolie do the same?)
- Approval from parents from both sides that they agree to the
adoption and are 'happy'
Police verification certificate
AIDS test certificate
Cancer test certicate
A huge list of miscellaneous tests ranging from heart to blood
An assurance from a couple (Not parents) that they will adopt the
child if we both die
Salary slip
Conduct certificate from the company we work in (???)
Verification numbers of 3 sets of people who are not relatives
A 5 pager which husband and wife need to fill independantly about
their 'emotions' regarding adoption
Birth certificate from both sides
Ration card
Domicile cert
Marriage certificate (Did Sushmita Sen give one?)
Some of these were almost impossible to get like the assurance from
people to take on your child in the circumstance of death. Thats where
friends stepped in and after about a year (in between shifting jobs,
moving houses, moving towns etc) we had all the papers ready. When we
sent all the docs to the Pune place there was no response. Quickly
contacted the friend who introduced us there, and he gave us the main
persons number. Once contacted, we were informed that currently they
work on adoptions only for NRI's.
Fortunately for us, the Karnataka
coordinating agency helped us with another institute in Pune. But this
one wanted us to take an Australian AIDS test, declare our property and
they also felt that the friends who had agreed upon taking our child
after us, were in their 40's and they wanted a younger couple's
assurance.
Currently my husband and I have decided to give this a break, since we
are just getting aggravated. We have been advised many times to work
around the system and just get children who are abandoned in a
hospital, but its a scary thought since you never know if the child
given to you is really abandoned or stolen by some guy from some
frantic mom, for some quick bucks. We have been approached by another
center here in Bangalore and we are open to the same, but its already
been 2 years since the work started for a baby...and it is a country
with 15%of the world's population and a birth rate of 22.8 /1000. What
would it take to change the system?