Byline: SOPHIE WALKER
LORALEE LEE rips open the cheap, battered A4 envelope and pulls out
the flimsy sheets of paper. Suddenly, she lets out a small gasp.
'David!' she calls to her husband. 'Look!' On the top right-hand corner
of the first page there is a passport-sized photograph of a tiny Asian
baby gazing soulfully at the camera.
Underneath is written one word: Abandoned.
'Look at her,' says Loralee, her voice breaking.
'She's so beautiful.' Loralee wipes the tears from her eyes, half
laughing at herself for being so emotional. But you can hardly blame
her for being overcome: for this is David and Loralee's first glimpse
of their new daughter.
Her name is Pratiksha-Kate, she's two-anda-half years old and is in Preet Mandir children's home in southern India, waiting for the Lees - her new parents from Britain - to come and collect her.
In the wake of the Kilshaws' attempts to buy and bring home twins
from the U.S. last month, the nation's preconceptions of parents
adopting from overseas have taken a battering. Yet the Lees' story
couldn't be more different.
The joy that Loralee and David
have found in taking on two - and soon to be three - little Indian
girls, without a penny being exchanged, is a welcome antidote to the
tawdry media circus surrounding the Kilshaws on both sides of the
Atlantic.
For ten years, David, 38, a freelance writer, and
Loralee, 45-year-old resident theologian for the Mother's Union, have
been piecing together their beautiful young family.
Their three girls are all unrelated and come from various children's homes across India.
The Lees' first daughter, Bina-Ruth, is now ten, their second,
Rachita-Beth, is six. (The Lees added the English additions to the
girls' original Indian names.) In fact, the only people more excited at
the thought of Pratiksha-Kate's imminent arrival are her two
prospective sisters, who can hardly contain their enthusiasm at the
prospect of a new sibling.
Hopefully, it won't be long before
Pratiksha-Kate comes home to East London - David estimates by the end
of March. Once the Lees sign and return the adoption papers, they should receive notification from the Indian social services that they can fly to India and collect her.
Pratiksha-Kate's notes - just like her sisters' - consist of a series
of typewritten questions with one-word answers. Temperament? Good.
Intelligence? Fair. Speech? Fine. In Britain, adoptive parents go and choose the child they will take on, but in India the children's home does that for them, and these notes are the only information they are given.
'We simply asked: "Have you any children who would be available for overseas adoption?"
They said: "Yes, a little girl."
'We said we'd take her. We knew nothing about her at all. Every
couple of weeks we manage to get a call through, but all they ever tell
us is she's doing fine.
'To be honest, we know from our
experience with Bina-Ruth and Rachita-Beth that you can't go by any
information that you do get.
Rachita-Beth's adoption
notes described her as "backward", but at six she has the reading age
of an 11-year-old. Her teacher says she's the brightest child she's
ever met.' Still, Loralee is worried by the news that Pratiksha-Kate is
still only walking 'with assistance'. 'You just know that no one has
spent
much time with her,' says Loralee.
'They
can't, because there are too many children who need help. It's so sad.'
What is clear is that it's a distressing and difficult process, so why
has this intelligent, middle-class couple decided to adopt children
from halfway around the world? For Loralee there are two reasons: one
ethical, the other medical.
'I am a carrier of haemophilia,'
she explains. 'I've been told that any sons I had would have a 50 pc
chance of developing the illness, and any girls would have a 50 pc
chance of becoming carriers themselves.
'As a child, I
watched my cousin growing up with the disorder. He couldn't play sport
or take any risks in case he cut or bruised himself. It was so
restricting for him.
YET even if I were not a carrier, I would
still have chosen to adopt. I have always believed it's selfish to
have babies when there are so many children who need parents.
I can remember saying this to my mother when I was only ten.' Loralee
met David when they were both postgraduate theology students. She was
29 and he was 22 when they married, yet she didn't feel ready to adopt
any children until six years into her marriage. 'David and I had talked
about children, but this was the first point in our lives we both felt
we were ready.' David, by this stage, was as committed as Loralee.
'When we first met, I didn't want a family at all,' he says. 'I'd
watched my older sister with babies, and I decided they just took over
your life. It took until I was 28 for me to feel that pull towards a
family. And morally - in line with my Christian beliefs - I felt adoption
was the right thing to do.' But when the Lees approached social
services, they were told Loralee was too old. 'They said my only chance
of a child would be a severely handicapped one,' she says.
'We thought about it long and hard, and, though we felt horribly
guilty, we decided that since we both work and would have to share the
childcare, we just wouldn't be able to cope.
'That was a
terribly hard thing to admit. The social worker said to me: "Well, you
obviously don't want a child that much then." We felt dreadful,
although I still believe we made the right decision.' But the Lees
weren't going to give up. 'We knew it was possible to adopt from other
countries,' says Loralee, 'although cross-cultural adoption was frowned on by social workers in the UK.
'It was some Indian friends of ours who suggested we consider India
- which I think I needed to hear. I'd had such a negative reaction
from social services, who told us we would be depriving a child of its
culture.
'For us, India had two advantages,' says
David. 'They generally speak English, and we already had contacts
there. After her degree, Loralee had spent a few years living in India
- which meant we had Asian friends both there and in Britain.' In
1990, Loralee and David flew out to Delhi to see a friend of theirs who
had set up an informal meeting with a local social worker. Loralee
recalls: 'In India, it isn't polite to talk about adoption
in a social situation like that, so for 15 minutes we chatted about
the weather and made small talk about our lives in England.
'At the end of this, she turned to us and said: "I can see you would be
good parents - and I am pleased to say God has a baby girl for you.
Would you like to come and see your daughter?"
'We were absolutely dumbstruck, but thrilled. We jumped into a taxi -
all three of us squashed into the back - drove for about 20 minutes
and pulled up outside a tiny hospital.' Loralee and David were taken to
a windowless room measuring 10ft by 12ft. It was clean but austere. In
it were eight cots - four lined up against each of the two longest
walls.
Each of the eight babies had been abandoned or was ill.
'A nurse, looking like Mother Teresa in her white sari with blue
edging, reached down into one of the cots and lifted out a
three-day-old baby swaddled in sheets. Then she held the baby towards us
- as a midwife might give a father a first glimpse of his child.
'First she pulled the sheet from the baby's head to reveal this mass
of black curly hair; then, because the baby was sleeping, she
unravelled the sheet to reveal this tiny foot, which she tweaked with
her finger.
'The baby went "Waaahhh" and the nurse smiled, as if to say "See, she's healthy". Then she wrapped her back
up, put her in the cot and walked us outside again, into the heat.
'I said: "What is the name of the child?" The nurse said: "Bina." For
me it seemed like a sign. Bina is a Hebrew word meaning great wisdom
and insight.
It's also the name of my very best friend.' The
Lees were told nothing of the natural mother, whose identity is
fiercely protected in every Indian adoption case.
But
what appeared to be developing as a painless collection was only the
start of a lengthy process. First, Loralee and David needed to be able
to prove they were fit parents by presenting a completed home study
report from the UK.
AT THE time we didn't know any of this,'
says Loralee. 'If we'd known what was involved and how long it would
take before we'd see her again - another 14 months - then we would have
said something . . . we'd have asked to hold our baby, or taken her
photograph. But we were terribly naive.
'We simply went back
to our hotel - I don't think we knew what else to do - and it was there
that we chose her full name. David said "Bina Lee?"
and I
said "No, too short". "Bina-Ruth Lee?" he suggested, after Ruth in the
Old Testament. I thought it was perfect. From then on, she was always
Bina-Ruth.' Two weeks later, the Lees flew back to Britain and began
the process of the home study report, which took six months to finish.
It was another eight months before Indian social services had
established that no Indian parent was willing to adopt this particular
child, and the adoption paperwork was completed.
In
1992 the Lees were awarded guardianship of Bina-Ruth and David flew
back to Delhi to pick her up. 'We couldn't afford for us both to fly
back,' says Loralee, 'which was incredibly difficult for me. The first
time I saw Bina-Ruth was at the airport, when I watched David arrive
with her in his arms.
'He looked absolutely awful - grey and haggard. He had been ill in India with a stomach bug and needed a
into her arms. I just felt we had always belonged together. There
wasn't a doubt in my mind.' At home, the Lees found it difficult
adjusting to instant parenting. 'We were so clueless,' says Loralee.
'We couldn't even work out how to go out to a coffee shop with a baby.
'We used to walk Bina-Ruth round and round the park in her
pushchair until she fell asleep, because we thought we shouldn't take
an awake child into a cafe.
'We did get some odd looks from
people - being a white couple with an Asian child - though I think
most people just assumed she wasn 't our daughter. But it didn't matter
to us, because at last we had thedaughter we had longed for.' In every
picture of David and Loralee from that time, the y are grin -ning
maniacally. There is Loralee feeding Bina-Ruth - 'andcatching head-lice
in the process,' she laughs, 'although I didn't know it at the time.'
There's David reading Bina-R uth a story, politely holding the book
towards his daughter as if she's a grownup.
'She was so quiet,' saysLoralee.
'She found it difficult to express her self, even if she was upset. W
e used to take her out in the pushchair , and where other children
wouldbe point -ing and laughing, she would sit, absolutely silent, just
looking .
'I see so many parents wh o think to have a quiet
child would b e wonder -ful, but we just wanted her to feel able to
express herself.' These were, no doubt, th e mental scars inflicted by
Bina-Ruth 's traumatic beginnings in the children 's home. 'During all
those months when we sought to become her guardians, she had
contracted an extremely serious ear infection,' saysLoralee.
'The British doctors saidshe must have been in an awful lot o f pain, but she'd never received any treatment.'
WITHIN a year of Bina-Ruth's arrival, the Lees began to plan their next adoption.
David says: 'Basically, Loralee said: "That worked out so well let 's
have another one" ' This time, the Lees wen t through the home study
report first . They found their second daughter , Rachita-Beth, in
Shradhanand Anathalaya children's hom e in Nag -pur, India. It was still 18months before they were given guardianship and were able to collect he r .
Having already adopted one daugh -ter made things easier at home.
'The girls bonded straight away ,' says Loralee. 'Well, apart from when
Rachita-Beth bit Bina-Ruth when they met. (She laughs.) 'Rachita-Beth
was a verydifferent character. Where Bina-Ruth is very quiet,
Rachita-Beth is extremely out spoken and quick-witted. Rachita-Beth
always understandswhat her sister is feeling and what she wants to say
when she doesn'thave the words - and will tell us. They are incredibly
close.
'When they argue, it's usually over issues of fairness -
if onefeels the other has been given something more than they have. We
catch them giving each other sneaky kicks under the kitchen table.
It's justthe usual sibling rivalry. That's whatbeing in a family is all
about.' Seeing the gradual transformation from tiny underfed
babiesinto such
vivacious, beautiful girls has been incredibly
gratifying. 'When we go out, people stop me on the street to tell me
how gorgeous they are,' says Loralee, with a huge smile.
One
of the most gratifying developments is how well the girls are doing at
Cathedral School, where David drives them every day. 'They're really
clever,' says David proudly. 'Both top of their respective classes.
'Then there's Rachita-Beth and her gymnastics: she does four hours
each week. And for Bina-Ruth there's football. She's a huge fan of
Liverpool, so we go to matches together. She also writes novels, like
her Dad. Although hers are better than mine.' There's no secret answer
to the girls' growing confidence, says David. 'We just try to spend as
much time with them as possible.
There aren't any shortcuts.
You need to let the girls know they're safe and secure and loved.
That's what any child needs.' The worst times have been when David and
Loralee have experienced racism. Loralee says: 'One of their friends
was having a party. The mother came to me and said; "I'm sorry, but we
can't invite the girls because we can't have a black in the house." '
Loralee shakes her head in disbelief. 'I can't believe anyone can even
say something so awful. I just said to her: "How sad." Thankfully, it's
very rare that we get that kind of attitude.
'I have spent time worrying whether the girls would have preferred to have parents from India.
But whenever I ask them, they just look at me as if I'm mad and say:
"No".' The Lees decided to adopt a third child three years ago.
It has taken since then for the home study report to be completed, the child to be found, and the paperwork to be done.
THE Lees believe that Pratiksha-Kate will make their family complete. 'I think this third adoption has really helped the other two to understand what happened when they arrived.
'When Bina-Ruth first came here, because she obviously hadn't
received much physical affection in the home, she found it difficult to
show it herself.
'The other day, she spent ages carefully
choosing a book for Pratiksha-Kate, which featured a little boy walking
through a jungle and getting all different kinds of hugs from
different animals. "It'll be good," she said to me, "because it will
show how there are different sorts of love." ' When Pratiksha-Kate is
ready to be collected, thanks to the fact that Loralee has become one
of the first adoptive mothers to be awarded maternity pay, the whole
family can afford to fly out to pick her up. This, says Loralee, will
also give the girls the chance to see the country of their birth.
'I still have social workers in the UK who say to me: "What about the
culture you're depriving them of, what about their religion?", because
David and I are Christian rather than Hindu or Moslem.
'But I
am happier with the way the Indians react. Many of the carers and
social workers over there say: "What is the matter with people in your
country?
They have so much; why don't they adopt these children?"
'When we see Bina-Ruth - this little girl who was so quiet and
nervous - running upstairs and slamming her bedroom door in a temper
tantrum, or Rachita-Beth, who was so frail and tiny, doing four hours of
gymnastics each week, it's so gratifying.
'Most gratifying of all, though, is just to see them happy - and to know how happy they've made us.'
