So, to friends who already knew and those who didn’t, I am not pregnant but was about to adopt.
In the midst of those news everywhere in our country of babies being murdered, burnt to death even, we were approached with a problem… of a baby born out of wedlock, the mother who’s unable to care for her due to it being a big sin in the eyes of our society and of her family who wouldn’t want to bear the public humiliation.
I think while some people think it is a noble intention to take in another stranger’s baby to raise as your own, others probably think it is a glorified sacrifice… that one probably does this to portray oneself as a hero to everybody. I don’t think that is a fair statement, although everyone has the right to his or her opinions.
First of all, the intention to adopt doesn’t come very easily. One would have to know that they’re prepared to face so many risks and consequences. For the one and I, we saw the positive side of it first. We saw how so much more conducive the environment can be for the baby to grow up with us, how much both parents could shower the baby with the love she deserves and the security and stability that we would have provided for her.
Don’t get me wrong, I always believed that the best person to raise a baby is her own mother. A mother’s love can never be replaced. A mother can do anything to protect her child where in this case, the mother initially thought something she couldn’t handle.
In our Asian society where a woman is always expected to take care of her pride and self respect, a lot of these women are shunned from the society as they are seen to have made the gravest mistake of their lives. Our Malay society would more often judge them for being easy and families would disown them. Hence, the reason why the so many recent cases of babies being left to die by their own mother.
While some of us continue to judge them, we, on the other hand, were only thinking about the baby. Yes, it was none of our business as it wasn’t our mess, but since we were called in when this situation occurred, what else could we have done. Of course, we could have just closed one eye and pretended that we didn’t have to care but I dunno… as a mother myself and seeing how innocent the baby looked in the picture, I can’t help but to feel for her and offered a solution which I knew was doable.
The mental and physical preparation for parents to adopt cannot be taken so lightly. First of all, we would have already prepared ourselves mentally to raise the baby as our own. More often than not, a lot of parents out there who adopt, wouldn’t want to tell society that their baby is adopted. They would want to say it’s theirs because of many reasons, more specifically as they want to keep providing that security for the baby and to ensure that they are always fair in how they treat all their children. For us, we went a little over board in our excitement as if we were getting a baby of our own. We’ve prepared everything needed for the baby to be as comfortable as possible in our care and we've notified those significant to us, to avoid questions later.
We only had about 1 week to prepare and although we already have so many clothes and stuff of little jj’s, we still went all out to get new stuff for her since I felt that the new baby deserves some new stuff.
We’ve even made the little munchkin understand about the arrival of the new baby and why it is important to treat her as a family member. In fact, the little munchkin was even willing to give up his room to his 2 sisters and we transformed our office into a room that’s adequate enough for him. After all, we only had 1 week but once we have set our mind into something, we went all out into making sure we were prepared for the baby’s arrival. Heck, we were even discussing about changing my soccermom car to a 7-seater MPV just so that we could accommodate more people, when the need arise.
It’s like, when you put your mind into something, we were willing to do what it takes. All these at top of our mind, always knowing that one day, the mother would want to look for her child and the child, upon understanding why there is no information of the father on her birth certificate, would question her existence and her rights to the truth.
Yes, we were aware of all these. We were. And that mental preparation is something that we’ve conditioned ourselves, and the immediate families that were to be our best support system.
But… in the end… I guess you can only help those who want to help themselves. I guess in some cases like this, where the family initially only cared about how society would look upon their family, once they have seen the baby, all that disappeared. Decisions can change and you would also come across those characters who were silent and weren’t even considered in the initial decision making process, claiming their willingness to take the baby into their care.
So, in the end, it became what everyone else felt. Decisions were made not for the best interest of the baby but what everyone else wanted.
I am not disappointed at the mother changing her mind after we have taken care of the baby because as a mother, I fully understand how much pain she must have felt after carrying the baby full term. I am only disappointed at how everything turned out in the end… that process when the baby was taken away from our care.
Frankly, we felt relieved that the mother changed her mind before we became too attached to the baby but the fact that those involved who had initially welcomed our help made us look like we rushed everything and took the baby without the mother’s consent, was totally unnecessary.
I know all these are just excuses to justify whatever mistake they must have made before they came to this current decision but it is totally unfair to us. It is not easy to agree to something like this. I never asked for any acknowledgement on our part but we were never prepared to be treated this way after all that has happened.
This has seriously taught us a priceless lesson in life. For me, as I’ve told the one, I would like for him to restrain me everytime I get too emotionally involved in one’s problems when they come to me for help. Hey, I am a passionate woman, and that is how I live my life but this was a big slap in my face and I totally regret getting my family involved in it.
I know, as some said to me that this is a blessing in disguise… yes, I am very sure of that. But this was totally avoidable in the first place, if I hadn’t opened my mouth to volunteer. The fact that we we’re supposed to be the good guys suddenly left us as mean, inconsiderate people to the family, was totally uncalled for. So, I ask you, why do these people do what they do? Why is it that such good intentions is easily forgotten and taken lightly? Why do people conveniently blame those offering the solution they initially wanted and turn everything around into their drama?
You all know how it is when I get super protective of my family… there goes my mother cat mode with the fangs and claws and all… I detest the way it turned out in the end because I believed that things could have been handled in a more civilised way – where the mom could tell us truthfully right from the start of her change of heart, and her family could just take the baby away from us, apologise for whatever mess and we would have understood. After all, we didn’t go looking for a baby to adopt in the first place. It came to us.
This has seriously changed the way we look at life now. I know I have always told myself to not get involved in people’s issues that easily. But if you were in my shoes then, at the time when there were tears all around and looking at the subject’s photo, you would have at least felt for the baby.
Still, as the one told me, it isn’t even ours to begin with and that we shouldn’t really care. But this is the baby that will live to the day to even become friends with little jj in the future and I cringe to note how easy adults make decisions for a life who doesn’t even understand what's going on around her.
Ya ya… I keep hearing the voice at the back of my head saying this is none of my business. So, I am keeping it that way. Now that the baby’s back with her family, we would all need to pick up where we left and move on.
With what’s happened, I started to fully realise how much more important it is to take care of my own family. How much my family means so much to me and how I may have forgotten about what some other member of the family would have felt with the sacrifices that he/she needed to make, to accommodate to my desire to help another life. It isn’t right and we all need to be selfish the way others are selfish in their intentions.
We are glad that this episode is over and done with, with a deep scar in our hearts. I only hope that the baby is raised well to be a positive character in our society. But yeah, there goes that voice again, it is none of my business and wasn't mine in the first place.
