Journey of adoption can be tedious and lengthy. Every prospective adoptive parent(s) should know what to do to make this process not to influence them negatively. I have identified five of them but there could be more. So, if you have something that you would like to add, please feel free to add them in the comments so that others may benefit. As this article could be lengthy, I thought to add one a day. Here we go:
1. Do a legal adoption: For various reasons (cost of adoption, length of waiting to adopt and to keep the fact of adoption within the family, etc) some intentionally/ unintentionally, chooses to do an illegal adoption. Here it is worth mentioning what is legal adoption and what is not. Legal adoption is where you have adopted a child by following government established process. After completing your due process of adoption, a district magistrate issues a document declaring you as legal parent(s) to the child. Anything short of this could be considered as illegal.
Allow me to share an experience of a couple that I heard of, of what happened for not doing a legal adoption. They were infertile and one day a nearby vegetable vendor asked them if they would like to adopt a child. After they said yes, he brought a baby to them and said that the biological parents are unable to care for the child and if the couple could help them (bio parents) by paying some money. In ignorance and naivety, gave the money to the vegetable vendor and took the child in. Everything was going on well till one day the vegetable vendor showed up again at the couple’s door and asked for more money. When they couldn’t, he threatened them that he would report to the police. Alarmed couple themselves took the child to the police and reported the whole incident. Police had no other choice but to take the custody of the child and placed her in an adoption agency. Unfortunately, the adoptive mother and the child at the adoption agency became so sick, that on compassionate grounds government reunited the child with the family and allowed them to do a legal adoption.
Not doing a legal adoption could also render you powerless in terms of being open about adoption with your child. For not being open, you’re always afraid of your child coming to know about adoption through someone else other than you.
Without a legal document, you cannot obtain a birth certificate, which could create lot of problems later on, such as admission to school, applying for an Aadhar card and passport etc. If you have any biological children, they could litigate the adoptive child from claiming any part of inheritance.
Do you have a question on adoption? We have answers for you. Write to us at info@indiahopehouse.org
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