Educate yourself, have faith

Sarmishta Venkatesh and Venkatesh Gopalakrishnan with their son Abhi By Express News Service

BENGALURU: My husband Venkatesh Gopalakrishnan, who is a pastor, and I wanted a child for a while, and had tried different ways to get pregnant, says Sarmishta Venkatesh, who legally brought nine-year-old Abhi home earlier this year. “I had suffered two miscarriages earlier, and wasn’t sure if I was ready to adopt a child yet. In 2017, we started the process and registered as Prospective Adoptive Parents (PAPs) with CARA. We registered for a low-risk category adoption.

I would frequently go through their website, and read the profiles of kids with special needs. There were about 350 to 400 kids on that list, and over the months, I noticed that none of them were being adopted,” she says.

Their son, Abhi, was the eighth profile on the list of special needs children up for adoption, and Sarmishta says that his profile had been on the site for five years – no one had come to get him. Abhi suffers from a condition called spina bifida, where the spinal cord is malformed – he is paralysed from the waist down. He also suffers from hydrocephalus, wherein fluid builds up in brain cavities. He was abandoned as an infant in a hospital, and spent his first eight years in a children’s home in Andhra, during which he had eight surgeries.

“We were on the waitlist, and didn’t think we would see any results for the next two years. But when I saw my son’s face on the website, something tugged at my heart – we thought, maybe this is the child we should focus on. We then started to get more information on Abhi, and touched base with his foster dad and the adoption centre in Andhra,” she says.

Abhi’s foster dad Nathan gave them a shining report on him, and all the surgeries that had to be performed, were done. So the road was clear for the couple. “We first figured out some details – Abhi’s life expectancy, budgeting, and told our family and friends about our decision. They were initially hesitant, but that gave us more reason to go ahead.”

Abhi went to his new home in December last year, and was legally adopted in February this year. “From October to December, we readied our home and ourselves for Abhi’s arrival, and also gave a heads-up to family, friends and our apartment. The foster care period was two months long, starting December, and these months were a little hard – meltdowns and trust issues were common. Soon, with all the love we showered on him, we were able to build that trust.”

“Read, educate yourself, and have faith,” says Sarmistha, as a message to others looking to take a special needs child, home.

15 special children adopted in city since 2013

Latest statistics from the Central Adoption Research Agency (CARA) indicate that from 2013 till date, there have been 347 adoptions of special needs children. The state with the highest number of adoptions within this period is Maharashtra, with 82 children (44 males and 38 females), followed by Karnataka with 38 adoptions (12 males and 26 females). In Bengaluru, the number of special needs children adopted from 2013 stands at 15 - four males and 11 females.

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