"I was given up for adoption the day I was born'¦"

I am an adopted child. I also am a mother of a beautiful adopted baby girl.My life story is like a beautifully woven tapestry. I was born on the 19th of April 1972 in Dallas, Texas, USA. My birth mother was an 18 year old , Caucasian woman with lovely blond hair. My birth father was a handsome African American man. I have never seen them or spoken to them -that's how my file at the adoption centre described my parents. 

I was given up for adoption the day I was born. I was placed in a loving and caring foster home when I was nine months. My foster parents , Ginger and Fred Beamis were my family for four years. I had four foster siblings who I still keep in touch with. I loved them immensly, but I always knew that I was not there to stay -that’s the nature of foster care. 

Since I was a bi-racial child the adoption agency found it difficult to find me a permanent home. My foster mother worked in a day care center. One day a beautiful young Indian woman walked into the center looking for a job. Her name was Jayashree Chattterjee. Little did we know that on this day a new chapter in our lives would begin; I found a mother in Jayashree and she a daughter in me. My parents, Jayashree and husband, adopted me when I was 4 ½ years old. My brother Rohit was born one year later and so in a year I had a new mother, father and a new baby brother. 

When I was nine years old my parents divorced and Rohit and I moved to India with my mother. In a short time my mother married a wonderful man named Arun Thiagarajan.By the time I was 11 years old my mother had another son Shiva and after ten months she had another son Nikhil. So by the time I was 12 I had an enormous family . 

I grew up with the love of so many people. Not only did I gain a family, I gained a country as well. Nobody looking at me would ever guess that I am not Indian. God has been so good to me that I really felt the need to do the same for another little girl. And that brings me to my daughter Tara. My husband Ram and I got married on the 11th of October 1997 . 

My husband Ram and I had decided even before we got married that one of our children would be adopted. Ram knew that this was very important to me and was supportive. We approached a few agencies in Bombay but were not very happy with their response so we decided that we would adopt from Bangalore. We gave in our home study in February 2000 and by April they had a baby for us to come and see. 

This news could not have come at a better time. Since Ram had just lost his mother, it provided some sort of distraction for him. I left for Bangalore immediately. My husband and I went to see her the very next day. She was so beautiful , small, fragile and so perfect in every way. I held her and she fell asleep in my arms. I think she knew that she was the one I had waited for all my life. 

Our adoption procedure started right away and in a few months, everything was done. Tara became our child. I have a biological child Raghav who is a xerox copy of me. 

Tara is the very joy of our lives. Today, Tara is 12 and she is in grade six. We sometimes sit and wonder what we did without her for so many years. Tara has made us look at ourselves a little more differently. We now have something so precious to live for. Thank you Tara, you are the reason that your father and I live each day. 

We love you, my beautiful baby girl, and thank god everyday for you. Without you, there could be no “us”. Tara knows she is adopted. She knows she came out of my heart and not out of my tummy (these are my mama’s words for me!) She is my heart baby. 

My message to people out there is simple: Pass on the love the best way you know how! Heart babies need a lot of love!”