She’s filled a gap in our lives

“If your family isn’t on your side from the beginning, the whole process will be much more difficult,” says Smitesh. “Even before the adoption process starts it’s essential that the support network is there – especially from your family – or the social workers will see right through it. The child has to grow up with your relatives, as well as you.”

Smitesh and Versha with Maaya But support isn’t always immediate or guaranteed, as the couple has come to understand. Smitesh’s and Versha’s families have given them unswerving support, but it wasn’t until both sides fully understood the process and the reasons behind the couple’s decision that they could whole-heartedly get behind it.

Smitesh and Versha’s adoption journey started eight years ago, when they decided not to go down the IVF route to having a baby. As Versha says, this “wasn’t a light-hearted decision, it was a thought that had been on our minds for ages,” but it wasn’t until a holiday in March 2008 that the adoption process properly started.

“We went to visit Versha’s sister in Zambia, where she lives,” says Smitesh. “Versha’s sister was talking about adopting a child out there, and it got us all talking. When we got back, we decided to make a phone call and the local authority signed us up for an introductory evening two weeks later. We came away from this feeling as though it was more official. We had more information, and really started to get serious about adoption.”

Smitesh and Versha were approved in June 2009, so it wasn’t a quick process, taking over a year. “Long is the word we’d use to describe it!” exclaims Versha. Smitesh agrees. “We had some gaps during the year for holidays, but it did take longer than we anticipated,” he says. “Initially we were given a lot of information, but we didn’t realise until afterwards just how much the social worker assesses you right from the first meeting. This is why family support has to be there from day one, otherwise it could become stressful.”

“Initially, when we told our families, I had a full blast of questions from both our mothers,” recalls Versha. “Not because they were against the idea of adoption, but because they wanted to make sure I was making the right decision. They kept mentioning IVF to make sure I was doing the right thing as a woman. They also wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to ruin someone else’s life by making the wrong decision. But after that, when they were convinced, they were hugely supportive.

”Smitesh and Versha are Hindu and weren’t sure what reaction they would get from their religious community, but were met with a great deal of encouragement once Maaya was placed with them. Smitesh says that Versha was even compared to a mother goddess (Yashoda – Krishna’s adoptive mother) because she adopted a child!

“The big thing about adoption in our culture is that it doesn’t happen very often,” says Smitesh. “But, ironically, once we started talking about it, people said they knew families who had adopted 20 years ago! It’s not that adoption doesn’t happen, but that it’s kept secret.”

But keeping things secret wasn’t the tactic taken by Smitesh and Versha. They have been open with their close friends and families from the start and have found this essential. By passing on information and really finding the answers to their families’ many questions, it was easy to gain their support. From then on, there was no looking back.

Smitesh and Versha’s daughter Maaya, now 18 months old, came to live with them a week before her first birthday. Smitesh describes the moment they met. “The social worker had blown up photos of us to help introduce us to Maaya over time as mummy and daddy. On the day we met her, Maaya was sitting on the floor holding the photos. When a person got in her way, she kept peering around to look at us because she recognised us. It was quite adorable actually!”

It was five months between the day the couple read her file and the day they took her home. For Versha, it still seems like a dream come true. “I can’t believe we’ve got a daughter!” she says. “I still keep pinching myself. It’s been six months but still, the other day, I turned to Smitesh and said, ‘have we got a daughter?’! She’s fitted in wonderfully.”

“The family spoils her rotten,” admits Smitesh. “She’s got them all wrapped around her little finger. My brother and his family are always dying to see her, and their eight-year-old daughter carries her around like a little dolly. We’ve been lucky and so blessed with Maaya. She’s an absolute little gem and our own baby.”

In the Hindu and Asian cultures, it’s traditional for family and friends to pay the new baby a visit at home, bringing gifts and money. When this took place for Maaya, some of the visitors’ reactions took Smitesh and Versha by surprise.

“Some people looked at Maaya and said, ‘oh she’s gorgeous!’” tells Smitesh. “We know she is but they seemed surprised, as if it’s a stigma that an adopted child wouldn’t be beautiful. It’s completely the opposite and meeting Maaya has done wonders for what people think about adoption.”

Getting rid of the taboos surrounding adoption, particularly in an Asian community, is something that both Smitesh and Versha would love to see happen. They do believe that not every Asian couple will have such full support from their families, but times are changing.

“There will definitely be other Asian families who are not so accepting,” says Versha. “We’re blessed that our family is positive about everything we do, but I have seen some parents with very different views.” Smitesh agrees. “The elder generation in an Asian family may question the decision to adopt, or even put their foot down and say no. It would be brilliant to completely take away any taboos about adoption and show that it can be done.”

There is a UK-wide shortage of Asian families who adopt, but there are a great number of Asian children who need families. Social workers aim to place children with a family of similar ethnicity for the good of the child, which Smitesh believes is a good idea.

“At the end of the day, adoption is about what’s best for the child, not for the family. Nowadays, it’s common for relationships to be formed between people of different ethnicity, creating a different sort of society, so things may change in the future. But right now, matching ethnicity is important and the child’s interests should be put first.

“We want to show Asian families that there’s nothing wrong with helping someone and adopting a child.” But Smitesh is interrupted by Versha. “We’ve helped Maaya, but she’s helped us!” Versha exclaims. “It works both ways. She’s filled a gap in our lives. We’d like other Asian families to experience this too.”

Felicity Francis

• Find out more about adoption
• Find an agency to assess you
• Attend an information event near you

Originally published in the Be My Parent newspaper in November 2010.

This article is published with the kind permission of the people involved. You may download it for your own reference but if you wish to use it for any other purpose, please contact Be My Parent for authorisation: Be My Parent, BAAF, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Telephone: 020 7421 2666.

Last updated: 28 October 10

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