Open Adoption Trials

The trials aren’t in the open adoption itself. Birth mom never asks for anything. Well. She did once ask for money for DSTV but I don’t her we ourselves don’t have it. That was years ago. Then she asked for something this past weekend. In tears. But it’s not how you think.

People, I rejoiced so so much when I heard her daughter had passed Matric (Grade 12), First one to finish high school! Birth mom hadn’t managed to. Side note. I told birth mom that from the way she told me why she couldn’t focus in school and they kept telling her she’s naughty, and other things, I believed she has ADHD. She said she agrees. She said when I first told her my ADHD girl’s diagnosis, that she had googled ADHD and found herself saying, “But..this is ME!”🥹And so we have, an adult with untreated ADHD and clinical depression. The depression is being treated.

So, the news that birth sister was pregnant was disappointing. Extremely disappointing. So much for being happy she would enter university. Instead, the cycle was being perpetuated by her too. None more devastated than birth mom who has been telling her for years, to not do what she did. Telling her how difficult it is to raise a child with no income. (My goodness, it might be possible where there’s a good welfare system, but not here in Africa.) They had been sharing a bedroom and bed in their home. That is how deep the poverty is. (I have an acquaintance who will be trying to find them a bed if they move back home. Right now, they’re trying to share food with relatives housing them.)

Now here’s the thing. Birth mom’s recent partner and boyfriend wanted her to abort. She didn’t. He told her he wished she would die. He told her he hoped her HIV would engulf her body and kill her during her pregnancy, apparently weakened by being pregnant. (He’s evil and stupid.)

So we’d already been trying to kind of be a help. And now THIS. Another baby. No clear picture of what the boy’s parents are going to do about their grandchild except knowing they aren’t about to come any time soon.🥹

The trial is not in the open adoption. It’s in the heartache of seeing disaster befall a birth mom who had tried her hardest to at least stop her daughter from following in her footsteps. In their bed at night, she’d warn her, even telling her to only get a boyfriend after university. She wanted her to escape. But she hasn’t.

When we’d thought they’d be able to stand alone and move out the one small bedroom they’re in in a relative’s home, we’d offered to buy birth mom’s child a cot. But then, they can’t move. At least they can share food and get help with baby care in their relative’s house, though birth mom has to pay a baby when she goes to her part time waitressing job. So they’re stuck.

Last week, we did a video call when birth sister was admitted for an induction due to hypertension. My heart broke as her already stressed mom wept as she asked if it’s possible for us to still send the cot. She said they’d move some furniture out the bedroom, she’d sleep on the bed with the daughter’s baby and then her baby would sleep in the cot.

And so, I sent a cot, mattress and sheet which they collected yesterday. But remember, giving birth to my daughter is a secret. The relatives only know of teen daughter and current baby, not about my girl. So I asked her who she told her cousin (who has a car and went to collect the stuff) I was.

Constantia is one of those extremely affluent suburbs.🤣🤣Of course, I’d have just said that we are friends because white lies are still lies in my eyes. But I can’t foist my principles on others so…Constantia!? I wish I could afford a house for all eight of us in CONSTANTIA!😅