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It has been over two years since I first held our son in my arms.  Our life is full and wonderful thanks to our decision to adopt.  We are a mixed Indian family.  My husband is from South India, and I am from America.  Coming to the decision to adopt a child was quite easy for me, but my husband had a difficult time.  Attitudes in India are still different, but thankfully changing.  Even though my husband wanted a child as much as I did, there was something holding him back...Indian born thoughts.

Although the caste system has been abolished, it is alive and well in India.  There are several religious and societal levels in the caste system and once born into it, one cannot hold membership in another caste or varna.  These systems prevent families of different caste from intermarrying, and have prevented families from adopting a child that is not within their specific caste.  While in India, I had the fortunate opportunity to speak with women who were in the adoption process.  After years of infertility, many couples just go off for a long holiday and return with a baby.  Though there are many questions asked, many couples insist that they did not know they were expecting.  This is an apparently acceptable answer to relatives and life goes on with the new family member.  Many adopted children grow up never knowing that they are adopted.  However, in the last few years, the attitude towards adoption has been changing and now families are openly adopting and even forming support groups in larger cities.

Even though attitudes about adoption in India are changing rapidly, many elder parents, and grandparents of adopting couples still hold fast to the old rules.  This has been a hardship for couples who desperately want a child.  With arranged marriages, and respect for elders, young couples find it hard to adopt a child without their parents and relatives support.  The main concern of the elders is finding a baby born within the same caste.  It is often impossible to know what community the baby is from since many babies are taken from the hospitals straight to the orphanages.  Many more are abandoned, leaving no trace of the birthparents.  However, orphanange directors are taking the attitude that all children should be adopted regardless of their \birth circumstances..  In fact, many simply refuse to work with couples who only want to adopt a baby in their community..

Many Indian couples find that the best solution is to let their parents visit the orphanages, and eventually locate a baby for them.  This helps "grandparents-to-be" to take an important and active role in the adoption, and therefore a supportive role too.

In our situation, all of our family members were too far away from the orphanage of our choice,  so we did not have anyone in our family to take that role.  It was important to my husband to know that other Indian families have adopted and to know how their relatives had adjusted to the new baby.  We were fortunate enough to get in touch with other Indian families who adopted, and learned that most relatives adjusted right away, and that others only had to see the baby, to love and accept him or her.

We began our search for information about adoption from India in 1996.  We spoke with many agencies, join an Indian Adoption support group on the internet (ICHILD) and began collecting adoption agency material..

After a few months of searching, on March 12th, 1997, we found out about a baby in Kerala.  I spoke with the India coordinator of Childrens Home Society of Minnesota (CHSM) and within 24 hours, we had a package at our door that contained the information and pictures of a beautiful seven and a half month old baby boy.  When I looked at the pictures, I couldn't believe how much the baby looked like my husband.  I handed the package to my husband when he got home.  When he got to the pictures, he couldn't believe that the baby looked so much like him.  He was astounded, and we placed a frantic call to CHSM right then and left a desperate message to please not let any other family have him!  Of course the next day, they called us back and assured us that they would not.

We began the dossier process, poured out our hearts and lives on paper and four months later I was boarding my flight to India.
This child of ours, our son, immediately encompassed my life, and by the time that I had made it to our Indian family's home, there were many loving relatives waiting to hold and love him too.  I was suprised about how proud and protective our Indian family was of our son.  They made sure that everyone who visited knew that Ravi was adopted, and praised my husband and me for taking the steps to welcome him into our lives.  Of course, I was ready, but it was my husband who really deserved all the praise from his family.  He was the soul-searcher, the one who worried if his family would accept our child, if our child would be happy, a child of adoption.

November 8th, 1997, I carried our son into the International Waiting area of our local airport.  A large group of family and friends with tears in their eyes waited there to hug us, and hold Ravi.  My husband, my son's daddy, was the first to hold him, and there has been an inseperatable bond between them since.  Ravi is our first child, and he is adopted.  Adoption does not change the fact that he is as naturally ours as a biological child could be.  Any Indian family who wants to adopt a child should know that INDIAN FAMILIES ARE ADOPTING too!

Amelia Tummalapalli is the mother of Ravi, age 3 1/2 years old.  She writes poems and articles on adoption, including Portrait of a Birthmother, Waiting for Subhash, The Day That I First Held You, On The Day Of My Birth and Spirit. She is also the administrator of the mailing list and website I.A.I.C. (Indians Adopting Indian Children).