Though we are adoptive parents ourselves, my own journey with adoption started in 1976 when I was adopted myself. My parents were British Pakistanis living in London and I was adopted age 6 months from Pakistan.

My journey and life was tumultuous… I spent the first 10 years of my life in the U.K and then my parents moved back to Pakistan where I felt like an outsider, especially when kids made fun of my English accent and I was teased when they found out that I was adopted.

Adoption was, and in some ways still is, very taboo here and I bore the brunt of some harsh comments at times. One such time that has stuck with me was when a relative was looking at me whilst at the same time saying to my mother “people take in strays off the street and learn to love them.”

However, what really affected me the most was the verbal abuse I suffered from my own mother. I understood once I got a lot older that she had many unresolved issues from her past herself where she never got help for them, (which is why she lashed out at me so much). But when aged 11 and you’re told that daughters are like their mums, but “oh you’re not really my daughter so how can I expect you to be like me?” and then having a suitcase packed and put at the door because you were being taken back to “where you came from,” this all really takes its toll.

Maybe at least weekly I had some sort of run-in with my mum where being adopted was used as a way to hurt me and very often she was physical, hitting me, throwing things at me and even smashing things on my head.

We had numerous visits to ER to check for broken bones and head trauma and I also dealt with being sexually molested regularly by an uncle who thankfully died.

In my teens, I began self-harming… I couldn’t deal with the emotional hurt that I felt inside, so I converted it to a physical pain I could see and feel and deal with. I also got my hands on anything (glue, thinner etc) to get high. I was in a relationship from age 13 where I was made to do things I did not really want to do but did them anyway. I just blocked things out constantly.

This all led to me trying to kill myself 3 times over the next 8 years, however I knew enough to actually not die, but I thought that if I did something serious, they would realise; someone would realise and, help me.

Where was my dad through all this you may be wondering? On his chair reading his newspaper. He made the mistake of stepping in once and got told by my mother that I was her problem and she would deal with me, and he wasn’t to interfere… So while I huddled on a chair and had my head smashed in, he sat watching the telly or reading books or the newspaper.

At 21 years old I left home and went back to the UK to study a science degree. I I was not happy and got therapy and prescribed medications. I had been in several relationships but I always chose people who would hurt and abuse me…I seemed to gravitate towards toxic people.

I wanted an escape constantly, so instead of glue and thinner, this time I turned to smoking weed, drinking and then taking ecstasy regularly. Everything I did seemed to be self destructive – I see it clearly now, but back then it was just about getting the demons out of my head.

5 years later, I returned back to Pakistan and a few months later I met my saviour, my husband. We met and 6 months into our relationship we were married and I moved to Australia.

Slowly things got better and very slowly, I started to heal. But next, I began a new journey; one of infertility where we tried everything we could to have a baby, (including 3 rounds of IVF and 1 IVF with egg donors) and each of them failed.

Funnily enough, I did get pregnant many times, (all naturally), but none of my pregnancies ever got past 6 weeks. The last straw for me was my last pregnancy, where my HCG levels were rising perfectly but I was bleeding off and on and I just kept saying that something must be wrong, but the doctors just kept checking my HCG and saying it is rising perfectly everything is fine.

I thought because of all our losses I was just being paranoid, until at work I was sitting in a pool of blood and rushed to hospital and they did a scan. For the first time ever I saw the blip blip of my babies heartbeat. It was perfect, but it was in my tube. My second ectopic pregnancy (my first was a non tubal one some 7 years earlier was when my) husband worked remotely on a fly-in fly out basis and wasn’t with me. He was devastated but couldn’t get back. My in-laws were in their caravan and traveling around Australia.

A said a goodbye to my baby, I felt like I had killed my own child, but I had no choice at that point and, I could not continue with the pregnancy as it would have killed me. I lived but another part of me died that day. I felt like a stone statue, every single loss and failed IVF chipped away at my being…I smiled, I carried on with life but inside I was hollow.

Ironically what do I do for work? I work with children…I am an early childhood educator. My passion in life is about giving children the best start they can have in life and to let them explore and investigate and play and learn. I love nothing more than being in a classroom of children and setting up experiences and seeing their little eyes light up with excitement and I love the hugs and kisses I get from all my students and the honesty and innocence they have at that age.

We had discussed adopting however in Australia it is quite hard and there are a lot of restrictions and not that many countries you can adopt from when you opt for an International Adoption. Also most countries have a cut off of 40 year age difference between the youngest parent and the child and with an average of a 5-7 yr wait on adoptions we would have passed that and our file would be thrown out.

My husband had issues with work in Australia and had a job offer from KSA again so he went there and I found work in Bahrain and moved there. We knew as we had moved from Australia for work purposes we could now adopt and would be able to take our child back to Australia in the future.

During my summer school holiday I travelled to Pakistan and met Mrs Edhi the wife of Edhi who ran (he has now sadly passed away) the largest charity organisation in Pakistan. I think Edhi also has the worlds largest charity fleet of ambulances. They are the main organisations that do adoptions here and his wife runs and manages that part of the charity.

I was missing some documents so I said I would hand them in the next morning which I did. Usually the wait for a child is about 2-6 weeks. I got home and sat down and my phone rang and I was told to come and take my daughter. It was 30th July 2015. I still remember that day and just bursting into tears. I had nothing for her as I didn’t want to buy anything and jinx it. All I had was one onesie and the car seat.

I got to the centre and sat down, I was shaking. The lady came in and placed a tiny bundle in my arms and in that moment my heart just burst and I cannot explain the overwhelming feeling of love and attachment I felt. I kissed her little head and welcomed Amelia into our lives. She was 4 pounds and had she been in any western country she would have been in a NICU. She was estimated to be 5 days old so we gave her the 25th of July as her birthday.

My husband was stuck in Doha so did not get to see his daughter until 2 weeks after but he said that when I sent him the first photo and he realised that was our daughter he was just overwhelmed.

She was a tiny baby and gained no weight and couldn’t even have 5ml of milk without struggling…10 days after we got her she had not gained any weight so we had to tube feed her. I recall now maybe sleeping 1/2 – 1 hour a day as I had to feed her every 2 hours but I never remember being tired or not able to function. I loved every minute of being a mum, even these crazy ones!

Slowly she gained weight and it was time to take her back to Bahrain as we had her passport. My husband and I decided he would leave his job and stay at home to look after her, I would continue to work as I need to do so to have residency in Bahrain.

I decided to breastfeed her so went on the protocol to induce lactation. I didn’t make enough to exclusive breastfeed her but I did feed her for 2 years as much as I possibly could.

Fast forward, Milly is 2 and a half years old, she is a lively and precocious little toddler with a LOT to say….she is healthy and above average height for her age and just under average weight wise, but given her birth weight that is to be expected.

I still look at her and burst with happiness and yes I cry often …quite often, but from sheer happiness and every day I am thankful that this child has blessed us. People say she is so lucky to have you as parents to which I always say that no in fact it is us who have been blessed and are so lucky.

To anyone who is thinking of adopting and has hesitations please don’t. Just do it. It’s wonderful and life changing. I know people with biological children who have adopted and others like myself who have no living children and have adopted and either way the love and connection and joy just happens.

I know from my life and experiences that there will be hard times and I will have to face questions I sometimes won’t have answers for since in Pakistan these babies are abandoned, found in rubbish heaps, drains and other places left to die. Their parents and families and circumstances are all unknown.

There’s no adoption registers and names and choices to open and closed adoptions no letters written that can be given to the child no way for them to ever know any history or ever connect with their biological parents or families in any way.

I am 41 and still wonder who may be out there that I am related to. Have I ever passed them in the street and not known. I have struggled with all the questions and no answers and perhaps my daughter will too. But I will support her and understand and listen to her. Hold her and let her know her questions are valid and so are her fears.

She is my child no matter what. I did not carry her for 9 months in my womb but for 11 years in my heart.

We did adopt a little boy but sadly due to some very serious legal issues he could not remain a part of our family and he eventually found his forever home. It was another of those moments in life I will put down as one of the hardest but I console myself saying I was merely his temporary mum taking care of him until he found his forever family.

We do hope to adopt another child in the near future.

In Dec 2015 just before we got Millys guardianship (in Islamic countries there is no adoption) papers from the courts Australian immigration changed its laws to state they would not accept any visa applications for children adopted from Pakistan. This was the only country listed.

We do hope to return to my husbands country of birth and it may mean court cases but we will fight to get our little girl and our second child if we have one the right to live in Australia like any children born to an Australian citizen (I’m a permanent resident, but British by citizenship)

The UK also won’t give Milly citizenship so it’s a sad state of affairs but we hope one day things will work in our favour. If not we will continue to live as expats away from home and going back whenever we can.

Read more:

My Story – Adoption by British Mum Selina Smyth

My Story – Oscar and Autism by British Mum Andrea Jane Guy

Would you like to write for British Mums? If so, we’d love to hear from you. Please drop us an email to blog@britishmums.com