Biology Doesn’t Make You A Mother, Love Does : Meet The Couple Who Adopted A Girl With Down Syndrome In India

“When it is all finished, you will discover it was never random” I must admit that I got a little stunned reading these rather simple but profound lines. It surely hit something inside, but when I gave it a good thought, I felt peace and havoc both at the sheer intensity of this sentence.

The thought that Nothing, read NOTHING is RANDOM, is pretty overwhelming and intriguing. The awareness that Every experience, incident and person is taking us ahead to the future us is mind boggling. It seems we all are walking strokes of paint brushes on this canvas of life making our unique arts!

Most of the people live their lives as per destiny, but there are a few amongst us, who are not just making paintings; they are making masterpieces with their lives and choices. Those who believe and are acting on those beliefs are making this world a tiny little better place each passing day.

Kavita: My husband Himanshu Kaktwan is an 33 years old IT professional. He is brought up in Chandigarh, his father recently retired from Govt job and his mother too is a homemaker. Apart from that he has one elder brother who is into IT as well.

Deepa: When and how did you both meet?

Kavita: Ours was an arranged marriage. We got married in 2012, we will be celebrating our 5th anniversary this week.

Deepa: That’s lovely. Congratulations! Here is the next question and I’ve been really meaning to ask you this. What made you think about adoption in the first place?

Kavita: In one of our meetings before marriage I shared my views about adopting a girl child in future. I had it in mind from long as ill treatment towards girl child in our society has always made me feel bad inside.

But I must say my husband took my view very positively and so we came to the idea of getting the first kid in our home through adoption.

Also read: Assumptions: The Reason We Fail Our Special Needs Children

Deepa: Did you always want to adopt a child with special needs?

Kavita: Not really, special child was never our plan in first place. We came across Down Syndrome first time while we were in US, we read about it and saw some videos. As we got more knowledge about DS, need of adopting a baby with DS became strong. Fortunately Aditya’s adoption story made headlines all over the internet in the same course of time. His story made us realise that it’s not impossible to be a parent of special need children, they just need love as any other kid and some extra care.

Deepa: What kind of reactions did you get from your family, friends and society in general?

Kavita: It’s really funny, but no one took us seriously whenever we discussed adoption till we brought Veda home. Thanks to one of my friend and his one close family friend who were really the only ray of hope and support throughout our journey. Our parents were hesitant regarding our decision of adopting a child, so one with special needs was absolutely out of consideration for sure. Society in general never comes into our mind before taking any decision for our life.

Deepa: Was the process of adoption easy?

Kavita: The only challenge was adopting a chid in India from USA, being an Indian citizen we have to be in India to do the needful and to stay back for another 2 years at least after adoption. So we had to move to India for registering in CARA in April, 2017.

Apart from that we have been really lucky that the adoption process went very smoothly, and we got our baby in just 45 days after registering under CARA.

Deepa:  Now that Veda is with you, how do you think your life has changed?

Kavita: Words will fall short if we start describing the change in our life after Veda. She has brought immense happiness and joy in our life.

She is such a loving and cheerful baby, it feels like she was always a part of our life. Everyone in our family loves her and wants to spend more time with her. Of course there are few challenges with her which we are aware of and will keep working on them.

Deepa: Is there anything you’d like to say to prospective parents who are thinking about adopting?

Kavita: Personally there is no difference between an adopted child and a biological one. The paperwork, process of adoption and all legal formalities make you feel just like having a baby. And I would like to mention that there is no waiting time in CARA for adopting child with special needs.

One last thing although we got our child home but we wish and pray this doesn’t stop here, there are a lot many kids waiting for the love they deserve.

Thanks a ton Kavita. Though we end our conversation now, please know that you’ll be in my heart and prayers. God bless you all.