Tender Mercies: A Story of Adoption

May 15th is always a special day for me.  Everyone has a birthday, but only some people have their own "Gotcha Day."  This is the day my mom 'got me' from India.  We also joke and say that I am the best thing she has ever ordered in the maill!  I came on a plane in the afternoon, along with another Indian baby and a pilot's wife who volunteered to take care of adopted babies during transport to their new homes.  My mom and the rest of my family waited FOR-EV-ER.  Everyone else came out of the plane first, including L. Tom Perry.  He confirmed that there were definitely babies on the plane with him!  (I must've been vocal!)  Then the pilot's wife handed me over to my mom, and I was finally hers to keep! 

She brought me home, then called her friend because I "didn't come with any instructions!"  They got me fed, all ready for bed, and then it was lights out.  My mom put me to sleep in a basket at the end of her bed, because I came early and she didn't have the crib set up.  Time to sleep... Except that I was still on India time, which is total 12 hour difference.  My mom had a talk with me, telling me she doesn't do nights, then I never woke up in the night ever again.

Okay, now that you have some background, now for the most recent blessing in my life...

I have an Indian friend, who was adopted from the same orphange (International Mission of Hope) in Calcutta, India.  We both don't know much about our birth mothers or the circumstances before our birth.  It always left us wondering... where did I really come from?  It turns out that we both were able to go back to Calcutta and visit the orphange!  This was a few years ago, but Kaija happened upon an amazing discovery just a week or two ago.  She found a book one day at Barnes and Noble called: "Secret Daughter."

It's about a young married Indian woman, Kavita who gives birth to a girl, but that is very shameful in Indian culture, and her husband "does away with it."  She has another baby in secret, hoping that it's not a girl.  But of course it is, and she begs her husband for just one night with the baby.  He gives it to her, and in this time, she takes the baby to an orphange, after naming her "Asha (hope)."  The writing is absolutely beautiful as it describes the heart-wrenching feelings she goes through when she gives her daughter away.  The attachment she already feels to this little girl.  The love that binds birth mother and child together.  The worry and regret she feels after she has given the baby to the ophanage. 

Meanwhile, there is a couple in America who have heard the heart-breaking news that they cannot bear children.  They decide to adopt, and who do they receive as their new little daughter?  Of course.  Asha.  The story goes back and forth between Kavita and Asha, as they both grow and their lives change.  Kavita never forgets about her secret daughter.  This brought tears to my eyes.  My birth mother may never have forgotten about me.  I ALWAYS wonder about her on my birthday, if she remembers me, if she gave me a secret name, if she held me and cried before she took me to the orphange. 

This book brought me peace, and put Asha's feelings that are similar to mine into beautiful words.  Knowing how hard it was for Kavita makes me so grateful and feel so much love for my birth mother, making the decisions she did to give me a better life.  With that said, my mom here in Utah means the world to me.  She saved my life.  She gave me a place to call home, food to eat, tons of clothes to wear, fun vacations, anything I could ever want.  Including the gospel.  How blessed I am, that I could not only be adopted, but come to a loving family who taught me the gospel.

I am a lucky girl.

As the LDS commercials say, "My birth mother didn't give me up.  She gave me more."